How Do You Build A Heavier Floc And Let It Sink And Settle Faster?

That’s a question that Jim Georger, regional sales manager with Kruger, a division of Veolia, discussed with Water Online Radio recently.

Kruger’s market focus is strictly municipal water and wastewater treatment, and one of the products Kruger is focusing on is Actiflo, which is high-rate clarification with ballast. It’s a compact process that operates with microsand as a seed for floc formation, so the floc will settle faster. Georger told Water Online, “We didn’t invent it, we didn’t create it. They’ve been trying to do this since the 1950s.

It was perfected, if you will, in the late 1980s. The first installation was on the drinking water side. So high-rate clarification for drinking water. It’s all about the rise rate at the back end for clarification speed. Back then, they were running rise rates anywhere from 8, 10, 12 gallons per minute per square foot. Today, with the advancements, we’re up to 30, 32 gallons per minute per square foot.”

The number one driver for Actiflo has always been footprint. Compared to a conventional plant, Actiflo is 10 or 20 percent of the size, so you’re looking at concrete savings and better control of the process, according to Georger. Today, however, one of the main drivers is performance-based, with so many areas having drought or flooding conditions. It’s been well proven to be effective in an area like Texas where there has been flooding, high turbidity water, and flashy waters from 5 to 2000 NTU. Also, as Kruger does more piloting with Actiflo and collects more data, they are starting to target other contaminants like pharmaceuticals, organics, and taste and odor issues.

Click the radio player below to learn more about Actiflo, and hear the full interview with Jim Georger.