Optimización del proceso de coagulación-floculación de la Planta de Producción de Agua Potable "Huayco Machay", ubicada en el Cantón Cayambe : optimización del proceso de coagulación-floculación.

Abstract

The Cayambe Canton is currently supplied with water thanks to the ""Huayco Machay"" megaproject, which includes a Potable Water Production Plant (PTAP) located in the Loma Larga sector in the Juan Montalvo parish. Due to the variable quality of the raw water that enters the PTAP daily, the dosages of chemical agents must be modified frequently, so that in the face of this problem, an optimization of the coagulation-flocculation process was carried out. For this, the raw water was characterized and jar tests were carried out testing different coagulants and flocculants in different concentrations to determine the optimal dose based on the quality of the raw water that enters the PTAP. The final results were the optimal doses of the reagents used for raw water with high and low levels of turbidity, the removal efficiencies of contaminants, mainly turbidity and apparent color, and a cost-benefit analysis of the chemical agents used in the assays jar tests. It was concluded that the liquid PAC at 30% purity (Aluminum Polychloride Type A) as coagulant and the solid ferric chloride at 98% purity (Solid ferric chloride QUIMPAC 3900) as flocculant were the chemical agents capable of removing 99.43% and 100% turbidity and apparent color, respectively, in raw water with high measurements of these parameters, while the solid PAC at 100% purity (Low Iron Aluminum Polychloride PAC-V1), liquid PAC at 30% purity and solid ferric chloride at 98% purity used as coagulant agents removed between 75.98% and 99.28% of turbidity and between 79.17% and 100% of apparent color in raw water with low measurements of these parameters, on the other hand, the dosage of 10 mg/L of pH Regulator (RPH), 10 mg/L of Type A Aluminum Polychloride and 0.05 mg/L of ADEFLOC-1000A have low costs per day and removal percentages greater than 75%.