Water is a precondition for life. Drinking water is prepared from underground or surface resources of natural water. In both cases, it passes chemical treatment and disinfection. Many European drinking water plants adjust its hardness as the additional improvement step.
Challenges
Global drinking water resources are limited. In Europe, pure underground or mountain water resources are insufficient and surface water is used as a primary source. European drinking water standards prescribe strict physical, chemical and microbiological parameters for drinking water. Natural surface water shall pass physical and chemical treatment to comply with these requirements. Drinking water hardness is adjusted to protect piping and to control its secondary impacts on water and wastewater management.
Solutions
Lime and ground limestone or dolomite are used in several steps of drinking water treatment.
-
Suspended particles removal after coagulation by the combined effect of lime and iron or aluminium salt
- Chemical removal of iron and manganese from underground water at alkali pH, adjusted with lime
- Drinking water hardness control with two opposite processes
- Softening to reduce detergents and washing powder consumption
- Remineralisation to protect steel piping from corrosion and to improve sensoric properties of water
PRODUCTS
Carmeuse has developed the AQUACALCO® “W” product range dedicated to the drinking water treatment. Compliance with EN 12518 is a must here. This specialised range also includes pellet reactor compliant products, high concentrated ready-made milk-of-lime and extremely low aluminium grade.
- AQUACALCO® QW
- AQUACALCO® SW
- AQUACALCO® SW 97/ 30
- AQUACALCO® SW 97/ 20
- AQUACALCO® MW
- Ground limestone
- Ground dolomite