Acidification pre-treatment for uv water disinfection
AssigneeEarth Renaissance Technologies, LLC
InventorsMarcus G. Theodore, Terry R. Gong
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A pre-treatment method injecting sulfur dioxide into waters containing suspended solids to undergo ultra violet disinfection to form sulfurous acid (H2SO3) to self-agglomerate and precipitate solids from the wastewater for settling or filtration removal and provide acid to reduce bicarbonate and mineral scaling and microbial buildup on ultraviolet light tubes to improve their performance.
Claims3
A pre-treatment method for ultraviolet light disinfection of water streams having suspended solids in a liquid fraction with ultraviolet light irradiation from a uv light bank with uv light tubes, comprising:
- a. injecting sulfur dioxide (SO2) into the water streams before undergoing ultraviolet light disinfection at a point before the light tubes to form a sulfurous acid reducing solution, which dissociates to produce hydrogen ions, sulfites, bisulfites and free SO2 at an acid concentration below that required for disinfection, but sufficient to chemically dewater and agglomerate suspended solids without polymers, acid leach heavy metals from the solids into acidified liquid fractions and reduce bicarbonate levels to reduce alkalinity scaling and iron deposit buildup on the uv light tubes,
- b. removing and disposing of the suspended solids from the acidified liquid fraction forming recovered treated water,
- c. passing the recovered treated water between the light tubes for exposure to ultraviolet light sufficient for disinfection to produce a disinfected recovered treated wastewater, and
- d. adjusting the pH of the disinfected recovered treated water for reuse.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.