Grantee Research Project Results
An Automated Electrophoretic Mobility Instrument for Coagulant Dose Control
EPA Contract Number: 68D70039Title: An Automated Electrophoretic Mobility Instrument for Coagulant Dose Control
Investigators: Jorden, Roger M.
Small Business: Clear Corporation Enterprises Inc.
EPA Contact: Richards, April
Phase: I
Project Period: September 1, 1997 through March 1, 1998
Project Amount: $70,000
RFA: Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) - Phase I (1997) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: SBIR - Water and Wastewater , Watersheds , Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR)
Description:
Drinking water filtration plants nationwide are failing to adequately reduce the public health risk due to exposure to sometimes lethal Cryptosporidium and other microbial particle levels. New regulations also will require reduction of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) to minimize the risk from potentially carcinogenic reaction by-products resulting from disinfection. Particle and DBP precursors are controlled most cost effectively with chemical coagulation and filtration. Although operator skill has been sufficient in the past, new process control instrumentation becomes imperative as new regulations force plants to operate closer to their maximum performance capabilities.Chemical coagulation is used to control public health risk by removing particles and DOC. Coagulation must be optimized in a site-specific manner at each individual treatment plant and continuously maintained at the optimum. Operators do not currently have an online coagulant dose control detector that is calibrated and has the capability to derive new set point values from jar test results, which represent frequently changing conditions. The instrument to be developed under this Phase I project employs automated electrophoretic mobility, which meets the deficiencies of current instrumentation. It consists of a new innovative optical/electrical/mechanical measurement scheme resulting in a potentially reliable, low-cost, robust instrument that can be recalibrated in the field. This technology could provide operators nationwide with continuous, optimum settings of the most critical performance variable fundamental to running a high performing facility.
Supplemental Keywords:
small business, SBIR, drinking water treatment, engineering, chemistry., RFA, Ecosystem Protection/Environmental Exposure & Risk, Scientific Discipline, Water, Economic, Social, & Behavioral Science Research Program, Environmental Statistics, Chemical Engineering, Ecosystem Protection, Chemistry, Environmental Chemistry, Ecosystem/Assessment/Indicators, Engineering, Chemistry, & Physics, Ecological Effects - Environmental Exposure & Risk, Ecological Effects - Human Health, Drinking Water, Environmental Engineering, electrophoretic studies, microbial risk management, drinking water contaminants, dissolved organic carbon (DOC), electrophoretic mobility instrument, cryptosporidium , cryptosporidium, DBP risk managementProgress and Final Reports:
The perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.