Rapid Mix Contact Chamber (RMCC)

Spring 2016

The Rapid Mix Contact Chamber team worked to build a contact chamber that allowed for the rapid mixing of raw water and coagulant, improving upon the existing Rapid Mix Tube by providing a larger volume for mixing to take place. The goal of the team was to determine the shape of the contact chamber that would result in the least coagulant loss and to determine the residence time needed to maximize mixing but minimize coagulant loss. The team used mass balance to determine the loss of coagulant to the flocculator walls and used pigging to clean the flocculator in between trials. Mass balance did not end up working for the team. The end up using a tube settler and its performance as a measure for coagulant loss. The results they found were that contact chambers lessen coagulant loss. They found that residence time has the largest effect and surface area to volume ratio has a smaller effect on coagulant loss.

Fall 2016

For the fall semester, the Rapid Mix Contact Chamber team plans to continue last semester's work in optimizing the design of the contact chamber and minimize coagulant loss in general. The team will test even more chamber designs as well as test how other variables affect the formation of nanoclusters. Another side goal is to use the data to form a scalable, optimized design. The team will try to figure out if the flocculator tube could be more efficient testing with the different filtration mechanisms.