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Phosphate removal system keeps water legal

A Michael Smith Engineers product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Mar 11, 2002

The latest bulk storage and dosing system to be installed and commissioned by Michael Smith Engineers is designed for phosphate removal at a major water company site in the South of England.

The latest bulk storage and dosing system to be successfully installed and commissioned by Michael Smith Engineers is designed for phosphate removal at a major water company site in the South of England.

The system was required to be suitable for a range of different chemicals used in the process of reducing phosphate concentrations to within consent levels.

These chemicals included ferric chloride, ferric sulphate and polyaluminium chloride.

This variety of chemicals, their varying concentrations, different corrosive effects and freezing points, required careful attention to the system design and materials selection.

A solution was to keep the number of metallic components to an absolute minimum because of the extremely corrosive nature of ferric chloride.

The tanks were manufactured in GRP to meet BS4994 category 1, while all pipework was in thermoplastic.

The access stairs and platform were also in GRP, with the kiosk housing and all the dosing equipment made from a combination of GRP and plywood.

Other nonmetallic components included GRP cable trays and trunking together with GRP stepovers within the bund to eliminate trip hazards.

The tanks were also trace heated and lagged with 50mm of foam and then clad in a further layer of GRP to prevent chemicals freezing and/or becoming viscous at low temperatures.

The discharge hoses are secondary contained so that should the first hose fail any leak is contained within the second outer hose, with detection via a level switch and trap.

A PLC with site specific software was included in the control panel along with ultrasonic level monitors, backup level monitoring devices and a thermal flow switch to alert operators to pump failure.

The dosing plant included duty and standby pumps with crossover manifolds, a calibration vessel, flushing point, loading and relief valves.

As an additional safety precaution the dosing equipment is located behind a splash screen.

This ensures that operators will see any leaks that occur and be able to isolate the equipment without the risk of contact with the chemicals.

Also, the kiosk is sited over the bunded area, which includes level monitoring devices.

These features ensure that in the unlikely event of a leak, liquids would be detected quickly and would also be safely contained within the bund.

The kiosk has been divided into a filling, dosing and electrical compartments.

Both the dosing and electrical compartments have been oversized so that if additional dosing is required at a later stage, extra starters can be added to the panel and further pumps can be included within the dosing manifolds.

The system allows for 60m3 storage of an iron salt.

Dose rates vary between 10 and 100 litre/h with dose proportional to the flow coming into the inlet of the works.

Find out more about this article. Request a brochure, download technical specifications and request samples here.

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