Filtraflo Carb is a chemical free polishing solution involving micrograin activated carbon, that allows by adsorption the removal of the Natural Organic Matter, the pesticides, and a large spectre of micro-pollutants in treated water while also filtering it.
Overview
With more and more pollutants in the environment, the quality of water resources is declining, with a potential impact on all potable water treatment processes.
To eliminate these substances, the most common technical solution that has gradually taken hold is using the adsorption properties of powdered activated carbon.
An exclusive Veolia Water Technologies patent, Filtraflo Carb combines two treatments in one: physical filtration of suspended solids with adsorption of organic matter using micrograin activated carbon.
This process allows for both renewing active carbon and washing the filtering media without shutting down the reactor, thereby ensuring continuous productivity and a constant level of treatment efficiency.
KEY DIFFERENTIATORS
Compared with other processes which use a powdered activated carbon contact tank followed by a settling stage, Filtraflo Carb offers three advantages:
1 - it can be implemented in reduced size facilities,
2 - it uses adsorbent media than can be reactivated and reused,
3 - it doesn't need coagulant or flocculant chemicals.
Compared with other processes using activated carbon in a fluidized bed, the Filtraflo Carb also offers the advantage of quick start-up and a genuine filtration capacity.
Features and benefits
Filtraflo Carb offers many advantages:
- Easy to operate
- Compact and modular
- Low-energy consumption
- No activated carbon sludge to treat
- Continuous washing: no need to stop production
- No coagulants or polymers
- Stable performance
- A flexible design using concrete, metal or plastic (HDPE)
- Adaptability to variations in contaminants (due to the high concentrations of AC in the filter bed)
Applications
Filtraflo Carb is particularly well suited for:
- small to medium-size facilities
- upgrading of existing drinking water plants
- groundwater first treatment step with low turbidity water
- surface water after flotation or settling
- wastewater tertiary polishing treatment
References
- SAEP DE BAS QUERCY (FRANCE)
La Française DWTP
250 m3/h Actiflo , Filtraflo Carb, Filtraflo sand
Retrofit project
- La Tournerie- Gahard (France)
Syndicat des Eaux de la vallée du Couesnon
40m3/hr (downstream to settling/softening /Actiflo® Softening)
Retrofit project
- Craon (France)
80 m3/hr
Direct treatment of well water
Retrofit project
- Eau du Morbihan (France)
Le Faouet Barregant plant
100 m3/hr (downstream to Multiflo™ decanting)
Retrofit project
Applications
The Filtraflo Carb process consists of transferring raw water in a reactor, containing the filtering activated carbon bed and using an upflow stream.
The water circulates upward at a speed which does not allow the bed fluidization but causes the activated carbon to gradually migrate towards the bottom of the reactor.
The filtered water is collected at the top of the works into collecting troughs.
The activated carbon at the bottom of the filtering bed is continuously recirculated to the top via an air lift. Energy consumption is therefore very low.
This technique enables to permanently clean the recirculated activated carbon filled with suspended solids from the flocs and other impurities by some of the filtered water in a specific stack located towards the top of the works.
Having been recirculated and “washed,” the activated carbon is then ready to be reused in adsorbing micro-pollutants.
Extracted either continuously or at a set frequency, the activated carbon in the bottom of the bed is replaced by an equivalent quantity of new activated carbon at the top of the bed.
Once the activated carbon is removed from the works, it is sent to drain before ultimately going to a thermal regeneration unit.
Innovation: Micrograin carbon
One benefit of the Filtraflo Carb process is its use of activated carbon in microgranules.
Once removed, the micrograin active carbon undergoes a simple draining and is then stored before being carried to a thermal regeneration unit. This means that the same material can be reused multiple times. Water treatment plants using Filtraflo Carb do not require any specific sludge treatment.
This real alternative reduces operating costs by avoiding the spreading of activated carbon sludge and related costs (transport, spreading or landfilling).
