Water is essential to sustain life and is necessary:
To drink.
For agriculture.
To drive industry.
To swim in.
But with the constantly changing environment around us, water has become a scarce commodity. In this article, I will be discussing how drinking water is treated so that it can be safe for consumption by humans or any other creature on planet Earth.
The water treatment process makes water safe to drink. One way water can be purified by removing bacteria and parasites from it. This is done through chlorination, which involves adding chlorine or a similar agent into the water to kill these organisms before they are consumed. Chlorine produces toxic substances and other chemicals when it interacts with organic material in water, so there must be an adequate amount of water flow for the chemical reaction to take place throughout the entire body of water being treated.
The first step of the process begins when raw sewage enters a wastewater treatment plant. There are two ways to treat sewage: biological methods (which use microorganisms) or physical processes which separate contaminants from water using gravity and filters such as sand or activated charcoal. When used together, they are called a water treatment plant.
- Biological processes use two types of microorganisms: aerobic bacteria, which require oxygen and grow best in warmer water, and anaerobic bacteria, which thrive without oxygen but are slower growing at colder temperatures.
- Physical methods usually employ three steps to treat water before it is discharged into the environment or returned to the water supply: screening and grit removal; water clarification with filters, coagulants, or flocculents to remove suspended solids greater than 0.45 microns in diameter; followed by disinfection if required. Disinfection is often achieved through chlorination (adding chlorine gas) or zonation (introducing ozone).