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This graph shows the height of the floc blanket in relation to the time the system has been on. There is a gap at the beginning of the data because there needs to be an initial accumulation of flocs in the column in order to form a blanket.
We noticed that the latter portions of both graphs were linear, and created trendlines to give the data about the rate of formation. This would imply that in the presence of a mesh, about an hour and a half into formation, the floc blanket builds at a rate of about 0.30cm per minute. It is hypothesized that during the initial hour and a half, the floc blanket is beginning to form and to compact upon itself, but only starts growing at a steady rate after this time has passed. When a mesh is not present, we saw the linear trend begin around two hours into the experiment, and the rate of formation was about 0.26cm per minute. The full floc blanket in this situation took about 4 hours to form, as opposed to 3.5 hours with a mesh.
Significance
There is only a difference of about 13% between these two rates of formation; therefore with this one experiment, it is difficult to conclude that the mesh in our setup makes an impact. Further experimentation would need to be done to determine the significance of the mesh in the formation of the floc blanket.