Water treatment process: Ion Exchange Technology

Coagulation and Flocculation Process of Water Treatment

There are two types of water that has been consumed by the human. They are the seawater and underground water. The chemical composition between these two types of water is significantly different. However, there are similarities between two of them, and those are including the containing of minerals which is beneficial to human being.

Unfortunately, both of these two types of water are not allowed to consume particularly for drinking directly. For instance, the sea water contains lots of sodium chloride or salt which is not good for human’s cell if it is consumed in significant amount. And with the growing numbers of level of methane, sea water currently is considered more acidic than before. On the other hand, the underground water is too alkaline, implying the presence of alkaline metals within it. Therefore, these waters must be treated by several process, and one of that is ion exchange technology.

Ion-Exchange (IX) technology utilizes ions in addition to remove the ions that is contained in the raw water. The ions inside the raw water is undesirable because it is not good for human body. Calcium and Magnesium ions are the most common ions that has been presenting in raw water treatment, and the process is called as water softening. Sometimes people also uses point-of-entry (POE) treatment process in demineralizing the water, particularly in big amounts such as industrial applications. Another types of ions that commonly can be found in the raw waters, and needs to be removed are nitrate, arsenic, selenium, barium, radium, lead, fluoride, and chromate. And these elements are in form of ions inside the water, so Ion-Exchange technology is effective and efficient to remove these elements.

In the Ion-Exchange technology of water treatment, the use of resin bed is important since the water passes through the resin, acting like a filter. Unlike filtration, the resin does not prevent the ions, instead they replace the contaminant ions which are within the water with the resin’s ions. As a result, the resin surface is full of the contaminants ions, while the water is full of the expected ions. There are four types of resins that has been applied in Ion-Exchange technology of water treatment, and they are Strong Acid Cationic (SAC); Weak Acid Cationic (WAC); Strong Base Anionic (SBA); Weak Base Anionic (WBA).

In water treatment process, either the Ion-Exchange technology or others methods, there are certain factors that must be considered. They are the concentration of certain matters, pH, temperature, contact time, and the level of residual chlorine. These factors are important since the water is not only used for drinking but also for another utilization such as household, withering, and many more.