Drinking Water Research Facilities

Cincinnati, Ohio

Drinking Water: Coagulation, flocculation, and sedimentation chambers for small drinking water treatment pilot plant

Two unique drinking-water pilot plants are on site at EPA's Cincinnati research facilities. These large-scale (6.4 L/min) pilot plants can be used to study contaminants in drinking water. Water is trucked from nearby rivers, reservoirs, and ground water sources and stored in the plant's 5,000 gallon raw water storage tank. Contaminants, chemicals, or microbes may be added to the raw water, as needed. Because the tanks are made primarily of stainless steel and glass, they can be used to study contaminants at very low concentrations. The tanks have been configured to employ coagulation, clarification, filtration, direct filtration, biological filtration, and softening. They can operate in series (softening following coagulation) or in parallel (comparative coagulants, comparative filter media, comparative disinfectants); and such disinfectant oxidants as chlorine, ozone, chloramine, and chlorine dioxide can be introduced at several locations. Clear wells can be dedicated to filters or pooled to provide large volumes (up to 600 gallons) for sampling and concentration. These facilities have been used for the study of disinfection by-products, both organic (including trihalomethanes and haloacetic acids) and inorganic (bromate) and for studies for the control of pesticides, bacteria, viruses, Giardia cysts, and Cryptosporidium oocysts.

Drinking Water Research Facilities

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