Simplifying water treatment processes and reducing costs in Canada

The quality of both drinking water and wastewater are key focus areas for municipalities across the world. In North America, customers in Québec, including the Régie Intermunicipale de l’eau Potable (RIEP) of Varennes, Sainte-Julie and Saint-Amable, trust in the Kemira high-concentration, high-basicity, aluminum-based chemistry. As a result, water treatment processes are simplified and overall costs are lowered.
An aerial view on Quebec, Montreal in Canada.

Kemira is a pioneer in comprehensive chemistry offerings for the water and wastewater markets. Providing the best-suited technology for a specific application has been at the heart of the Kemira philosophy. In water treatment, this means offering a wide range of iron and aluminum-based coagulant products, as well as polymers – combined with 100 years of application expertise and smart technologies.

Cornwall, Montreal, RIEP of Varennes, Sainte-Julie and Saint-Amable and other customers in Atlantic Provinces benefit from Aluminum Chlorohydrate (ACH), sold under the Kemira trade name of PAX-XL1900. It is the highest concentrated and most highly charged polyaluminum chloride available. ACH, as well as other PAX products, yields to lower chemical sludge production, low impact on pH and alkalinity and results in lower residual aluminum. It works also well when there are special treatment circumstances such as low pH, alkalinity and turbidity in raw water.

RIEP wanted to use only one coagulant year-round, instead of transitioning from acidified alum to polyaluminum silicate sulfate for warm and cold water conditions.

The evaluation of the chemistry at the RIEP of Varennes, Sainte-Julie and Saint-Amable drinking water plants started in July 2016 when warm water treatment began. The results were compared with the ones of the incumbent solution.

“The water quality and treatment performance were already very good. The drivers for testing Kemira PAX-XL1900 was the RIEP desire to simplify the drinking water treatment process and operation by using only one coagulant year-round, instead of transitioning from acidified alum to polyaluminum silicate sulfate for warm and cold water conditions respectively,” says Catherine Brosseau, Account Manager, Water, North America at Kemira.

The customer also sought to maintain the good water quality while implementing fewer chemicals, specifically to reduce the consumption of lime, and therefore adjusting the pH of the finished water to prevent corrosion in the distribution system. Kemira PAX-XL1900 performed as designed. It has a great fit with the customer’s water and the water quality continues to be consistently good.

Benefits of Kemira PAX-XL1900 in RIEP, Québec, Canada:

Low dosage requirement
a reduction of 8% in active material (Al), corresponding to 80% reduction in the feed rate as-is
Minimal pH reduction
much less drop in pH – final pH 8.3 with Kemira PAX-XL1900
High turbidity removal
consistent turbidity removal to below 0.2 NTU (settled) and less than 0.06 NTU (filtered)
Filter run times doubled
improvement of more than 100 hours
Fewer chemicals used
no lime is required for final pH adjustment
Low alkalinity consumption
high basic polyaluminum chloride / aluminum chlorohydrate chemistry consumes less alkalinity compared to alum
Significant cost savings
total treatment cost of the water was reduced (longer filter runs, lower chemical cost) while improving final water quality
Glass of water and paper straw.

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