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The Laminar Tube Flocculator Team hopes to finish the installation of the Settled Water Turbidity (SWaT) measurement system and run experiments similar to the ones we completed last semester. With the new turbidimeter system, there should be less flocculations in our data points. Therefore, clearer correlations can be drawn from the experimental data and conclusions regarding Karen Swetland's Floc Breakup Theory can be finalized.
Results
My contributions to the Laminar Tube Flocculator team include assisting in the design and implementation of the new SWaT system, researching and running tests on the new apparatus, participating in the writing of our research paper using the program Lyx, and giving public presentations of our research to the AguaClara advisers and fellow project team members.
The results for our research semester are that no concrete conclusions could be made towards the Floc Breakup theory because the new turbidmeter system still needs a lot of work and there are still many things we do not completely understand about SWaT. The research this semester has shown us that there are still improvements that need to be made to SWaT. Unfortunately, all the tests we have run so far are proving SWaT to be a worse residual turbidity measurement system than FReTA was. The NTU readings using SWaT were significantly higher than the NTU readings for FReTA at the same PACl dosage concentrations. Nonetheless, SWaT has been incorporated into the Laminar Tube Flocculator apparatus and Process Controller has been updated to the correct states.