Cork County Council have installed a number of streaming current monitors to semi-automate their coagulation control, particularly during out-of-hours water quality events.
Across all of Ireland small water treatment plants struggle with what to do with their coagulation dose rate when the plant is unmanned and there is a potential for wide variation in raw water quality, usually due to a rainfall event. Some will stop the plant, some will expect call outs, but most will increase the dosage of their coagulant (usually Alum) in anticipation of the event. This can lead to aluminium residuals increasing, to poor coagulation, increased costs and reduced run times on the filters.
Poor coagulation is not for Brian Russell of Cork County Council. By installing streaming current monitors on the front of the plant (just post coagulant addition), the quality of water can be monitored and the coagulant dose increased or decreased as required by the quality of the incoming raw water.
Brian Russel of Cork County Council was the first in Ireland to realise the potential for using this type of instrumentation from Process Instruments to semi-automate the dosing of coagulant.
“Our goal is to continually improve the quality of the water we deliver to the people of Cork and the streaming current monitors from Process Instruments gives us another cost effective tool to help us do that”