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Spring 2009 Mid-Semester Contributions

This For the past semester, I have been working on the Dissolved Air Floation of Flocs team, specifically . Originally, I was involved with the Aeration subteam; however, with the dissolution of that group (due to the conclusion that the method was ineffective) I have joined the Sand Filter team. Currently, the bulk of my work involves experimenting with dissolved oxygen removal from super saturated water by increasing the gas transfer rate using air bubbles as a catalystrunning supersaturated water through a back washed sand filter. The results from our experiments thus far have suggested that the aeration this method may not be a very suitable solution to the floating flocs problem, because the recorded change in dissolved oxygen occurs too slowly for our purposes and is minimal at best. However, one of subteam's biggest concerns is that the data collected thus far may be inaccurate due to equipment problems. Thus far, it seems that the method can effectively remove the excess DO in the water. While the method seems very promising, some problems have arisen. One problem is that the glass beads we are using are so small that they are being carried away by the bubbles. Because of this, we plan to continue to experiment with the aeration setup in order to confirm or reject our move away from the aeration method. And as we collect new data, we will simultaneously be formulating other possible solutions to test experimentally.In the The Fundamentals of Bubble Formation in Water Treatment by Paolo Scardina and Marc Edwards (found below), it was indicated that hydrophobic surfaces work best to induce bubble formation in water. The best geometry of the surface has yet to be determined. Based on these findings, I am interested in developing and testing a low maintenance or maintenance-free solution method involving hydrophobic surfaces.different grain sizes of sand in order to minimize sand loss and to observe the effect of sand size on bubble formation

My other accomplishments this semester include drafting up an AutoCAD diagram of the aeration experimental setup that can be found in the Floating Floc Team's Detailed Task List. I also made the flow diagram for the aeration method. While the experimental setup was being constructed, I also performed literature searches in order to find relevant information regarding factors facilitating bubble formation in supersaturated water. The articles I have found are:

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The Fundamentals of Bubble Formation in Water Treatment by Paolo Scardina and Marc Edwards

The articles above seemed more pertinent to the Sand Filter team; however, if we begin to experiment with other solution methods involving soils or surfaces, I feel like we can use these articles as a starting point.

My goals for the rest of the semester are to complete an AutoCAD drawing of our entire setup, perform more literature searches to gather information about alternate solution methods, and find a method that most efficiently solves the problem.

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