Water treatment: Sludge

Kemira manufactures a complete portfolio of environmentally and process-friendly defoamers for all municipal and industrial applications. Our versatile KemFoamX product line includes different chemistries for various foam scenarios.

Formation of mineral scales is a common problem in industrial processes, desalination as well as sewage and waste water treatment facilities. Antiscalants are substances preventing crystallized mineral salts (scale) from forming in e.g. water pipes, anaerobic digesters and dewatering trains. Our broad range of polymeric antiscalants and dispersants prevent inorganic scale and crystalization and help reduce maintenance time.

Polymers are chemicals used in flocculation. Flocculation is the process of agglomerating destabilized particles into bigger flocs. In wastewater flocculation and sludge treatment, colloidal particles are flocked in order to aid their removal or to help sludge dewatering. Polymers can be used alone or together with inorganic coagulants to make flocs bigger and more resistant to shear forces.

The role of coagulation in water treatment is important: it is the process of reducing the electric repulsion between particles by the addition of iron or aluminum salts (inorganic coagulants) to the water. Coagulation can successfully remove a large amount of particles (including most of the microplastics) and dissolved matter from water. In many applications, such as phosphorus removal from wastewater, chemical treatment using an inorganic coagulant has been shown to deliver better results than any other method.