Among the natural resources essential for sustenance of life on earth, air and water play the most important roles. Though air is the most important resource for life, it is water that has been determining the development of human civilizations on earth and it continues to be the same even now and perhaps will remain the same way in the future too.
When it is in abundance, we normally do not pay much attention to it. But as the populations grow many times and with more and more industrialization and human activities, safe water has been becoming a scarce resource for us. In the past, we could have lived with simple knowledge about water. But now, knowing more about water is becoming more and more important. Air, water and land constitute the most important environmental issues that concern all human beings on earth now.
As a chemical engineer professionally involved with water and environmental issues, I have been quite fascinated and interested in the topic of water. Some aspects of water I had covered in some of my previous blog articles as noted below:
Water and waste water technologies have become so complex that I find engineers with chemical engineering background are the most suited to get trained and develop as water experts. In fact, most of the reputed water technology firms of the world are predominantly run by chemical engineers.
Nevertheless, the users of water are not always not so well versed with the various engineering and technological aspects of water. For any technology to advance, the users also need to grow in knowledge.
I wanted to write some blog articles that should give such information to the users of water. But I concluded that it is not so important for me to duplicate the knowledge that is already available and accessible to the public as published in the various internet sites. Yet, people who are not so conversant with the subject may find it difficult to get the appropriate information using the internet search engines due to their lack of understanding in the key words that they should use for such purposes.
In this article, I attempt to give some important links to some useful websites that provide the much needed water and waste water related information. A click on these linked titles below would take the reader to the pages where more information can be found:
One of the exhaustive websites that provide much information about water and wastewater, especially for industrial users is the site of M/s.Lenntech BV Netherlands. The most important information that one can get from this site, besides getting their expert advice on specific water related problems, are the following:
3. Definitions on process water, demineralized water (DM water), drinking water, drinking water standards , drinking water standard comparison, Irrigation water, Ultra pure water, etc
4. Salient information about water treatment technologies such as : sea water desalination, surface water treatment, Water softening, water disinfection, water re-mineralization , Membrane Bio-Reactor (MBR), Moving Bed Biofilm Reactor (MBBR), Waste Water Treatment, Pesticide removal from water, Iron removal from water, Arsenic removal from water, Heavy metal removal from water, Nitrates removal from water, Ion exchange water treatement, Reverse Osmosis (RO) Water treatment, etc
6. Water treatment equipment information on: sediment filters, sand filters, Activated Carbon Filters, Iron Removal Filter Plants, Arsenic Filters, Remineralization Filters, Electro De-ionization (EDI), Oil filtration, Nano Filtration/ Ultra Filtration/ Micro Filtration, Coagulation/Flocculation, Clarification, Adsorption, Chemical Oxidation, Catalytic Wet Air Oxidation, Sludge treatment, Thickening, Stabilization, Centrifugation dewatering, etc
7. Information on Water treatment Chemicals, Water testing instruments, Water testing Lab Procedures, etc
Various types of pumps, valves, pipes/pipe fittings and other chemical process equipment are used for water treatment and industrial waste water treatment and sewage treatment plants.
The technology of water and waste water treatment plants employ various unit processes and unit operations of chemical engineering. Experienced chemical engineering companies are the developers of many modern water treatment technologies and they put the chemical engineering theories to practice.
With the advancement of human needs and comforts, advanced materials and equipment are getting produced year after year. This in turn burdens the environment and causes air and water pollution. To reverse the bad effects of water pollution, we need to develop new technologies that can offset the water pollution by appropriate water and waste water treatment technologies.
Waterborne diseases are on the rise now-a-days and it is necessary to know the causes and the remedial measures. There are various microbes that causes problems for drinking water supplies.
Microbes also create problems for industrial water consumers. But some microorganisms can be effectively used for treating waste waters that are rich in biologically degradable wastes such as municipal sewage and industrial wastewaters containing organic contaminants. Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) and Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) are two parameters commonly used to measure the organic contamination of water.
Wastewater treatment plants that are where BOD treatment is predominantly done using biological processes is commonly called BOD plants.
Another informative website that I would recommend for those interested in enhancing their water related knowledge is the website of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
In this site one can find useful information on a number of topics such as: Drinking water test (analytical) methods, Drinking Water Regulations, Anaerobic digestion, Classification of water types, Water pollution control guidelines, Source water protection, wastewater technology fact sheets, etc.
Water and wastewater engineering and technology is a vast field which needs to be given importance for any country to progress in a sustainable manner.
Awareness in about the various aspects of water , in my opinion, should start right from the schools and in general this awareness should be enhanced.
The government of India now has began to take up this issue in a big way. Recently, some understanding has been signed between India and Canada for the exchange of clean water technologies.
But Indian industry and the big and small Indian cities are pretty poor in understanding the importance of water for them. As a result, they tend to neglect this area and keep proceeding as if they were in the 19th century!
On the other hand, the water technology companies in the private sector in India has been making good progress and many of them are competent to handle any kind of water treatment challenges. However, their potential clients have not reached to their levels to make use of the available technologies in a knowledgeable manner! There exists a wide gap between the knowledge levels of the suppliers and the users! This actually creates a big challenge for the Indian water and waste water technology suppliers.
The knowledge and competency levels of the Indian policy makers seems to be text bookish with no practical experience. This creates the Indian policy makers to impose rules and regulations that are not very practical to be implemented.
Unless the competency and knowledge levels among the user, supplier and policy makers go hand in hand, this area would remain as a difficult one. The Clean Ganga Mission could also misfire just as its earlier version the Ganga Action Plan in such a scenario!
I had written about the failure of India in promoting the growth of chemical engineering education in the recent years. This has no doubt affected the our efforts in improving our environmental developmental issues with regard to water and air. If India keep looking to foreign nations for technologies on water and wastewater, it is because of such errors that we had made without proper futuristic thoughts!