Kruger Inc., the Veolia business unit that specializes in municipal water and wastewater treatment solutions in the U.S., recently started up a treatment process at the Rueter-Hess Water Purification Facility in Colorado. The Kruger Opaline process is part of a drinking water treatment expansion for the Parker Water and Sanitation District (PWSD). The drinking water plant utilizes Actiflo Turbo, Actiflo CARB and Kruger ceramic membranes (KCM) to produce potable drinking water for the PWSD’s customers.
The primary processes at the Rueter-Hess facility are Actiflo Turbo for enhanced coagulation, Actiflo CARB for enhanced organics removal via the use of powdered activated carbon (PAC), KCM for filtration and sodium hypochlorite for disinfection. The plant is designed to treat 10 mgd to meet state and federal drinking water standards.
The water from PWSD’s Rueter-Hess reservoir has a number of treatment challenges, including turbidity, microorganisms, algae, iron, manganese and high dissolved organic carbon (DOC).
At the heart of the treatment process is the Actiflo CARB process, in which PAC is utilized in a Kruger system. The system optimizes the required PAC dosage while minimizing the DOC in the treated water. Keeping DOC to a minimum is one of the main treatment goals of the water plant, since DOC combines with chlorine—in this case from the sodium hypochlorite—to form disinfection byproducts (DBPs), which can be a long-term health concern and are regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The Kruger-supplied process minimizes DBPs during treatment while making the treatment process efficient in its use of treatment chemicals.
Downstream of the Actiflo CARB process are the first ceramic membranes in North America. KCM features monolithic internal pressure-type elements, each with 269 sq ft of membrane surface area and a 0.1-μm pore size to effectively filter turbidity, bacteria and pathogens. These membranes were selected due to their high mechanical strength and long-term reliability.
The combined treatment train—Actiflo Turbo, Actiflo CARB, KCM and disinfection—provides treatment to make the Rueter-Hess Water Purification Facility an efficient, safe and technologically advanced facility for the customers of PWSD.
Source: Kruger Inc.
