Optimización de la planta de tratamiento de agua potable del municipio Soracá - Boyacá

Abstract

The drinking water treatment plant (WTP) of Soracá Boyacá’s town serves 1461 inhabitants according to data provided by the National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE) in 2018. This plant was designed with multi-stage filtration units (MEF) and a disinfection process to ensure the elimination of pathogenic organisms providing optimal water quality enforcing the drinking water Colombian regulations. These regulations are controlled by the ordinance 1575/2007, which establishes the water quality, control, and protection system for human consumption and the act 2115/2007, which describes the characteristics, basic instruments and frequencies of the water quality control and monitoring and the regulations for the drinking water and sanitation sector, which was amended by the resolution 0330 of 2017.

According to the physicochemical and microbiological water quality analyses at the end of the MEF units of the drinking water treatment plant provided by the Soracá utility, it could be seen that the treated water does not meet three essential parameters required in the act 2115 of 2007. These parameters were: 1) Aluminum, which exceeds the maximum concentration of 0.20 mg/L; 2) Phosphates, which are above of their allowed limit concentration of 0.5 mg/L; and 3) Iron, which goes beyond the maximum allowable limit concentration of 0.30 mg/L. Therefore, the main objective of this undergraduate work was to design a set of complementary water treatment processes such as aeration, coagulation, and flocculation to ensure the reduction of the after mentioned parameters to the maximum permissible values according to the act 2115 of 2007. In addition, the operational and maintenance manual of the projected units will be written in case that the proposed solution will be implemented in the WTP.