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Introduction
Our team ran an experiment to investigate the affects of saturated air on floc blanket formation. To do this, our team paired with the Floating Floc research team, who supplied water saturated with air to the process. This experiment is meant to model the effects of having a supersaturated system i.e. the effects that change in pressure ( in the transmission line to the plant ) could have on sedimentation performance due to dissolved gas coming out of solution in escaping from the influent water as bubbles.
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This supersaturated water was fed to the apparatus as influent water, where it immediately experienced a pressure drop to atmospheric pressure. While a pressure drop should result in the immediate formation of escaping air bubbles in the liquid, these did not form immediately. This is due to the activation energy required for the bubble to form, which is dependent on the surface tension of the bubble. In order to test bubble formation we observed the experiment qualitatively, looking for bubbles throughout the apparatus. We also monitored effluent turbidity, a value parameter that would reflect the effect of the bubbles on tube settler performance.
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