Water coagulation using electrostatic patch coagulation (EPC) mechanism

Coagulation of fine particles to form large flocs is an essential step to reach efficient dewatering of wet materials. The electrostatic patch coagulation (EPC) mechanism was applied in this study to remove turbidity and natural organic matters in water using four different dosing-mixing schemes. Sufficient rapid mixing and slow mixing or applying two-stage coagulation benefit removal of turbidity. The EPC mechanism could only efficiently remove organic matters of molecular weight of 7500-10,000 Da. Only sufficient rapid mixing is relevant to organic matter removal. The mechanisms for natural organic matters (NOM) removal are proposed to be complexation of ions and NOM to form insoluble aggregates to be separated by membrane filtration.