Water Properties and Treatment

It is essential that the industrial ventilating engineer have a basic understanding of the properties of water and its treatment. This is to ensure an efficiently running and trouble-free plant. Additional to these issues are the problems relating to the discharge of contaminated water to the surrounding environment. 

Water treatment over the past 100 years has grown into a complex science. It is of interest to note that in the 1880s a steamship left the port of Liverpool in the UK with instructions that the boiler water was to be treated with a mixture of cow dung and peat. A short time after leaving Liverpool, the ship s boiler exploded and the ship sank. It was not reported whether the explosion was due to the unusual method of water treatment. 

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The book consists of two major sections—Principles and Application. Each section covers several major subject areas. The Principles section is divided into the following parts I. Water Chemistry and Mineral Solubility II. Soil Minerals and Surface Chemical Properties and III. Electrochemistry and Kinetics. The Application section also covers several subject areas IV. Soil Dynamics and Agricultural-Organic Chemicals V. Colloids and Transport Processes in Soils VI. Land-Disturbance Pollution and Its Control VII. Soil and Water Quality and Treatment Technologies. Each subject area contains one to three chapters. 

A special kind of nonaqueous foam known as bituminous froth is produced during the application of the hot-water flotation process to Athabasca oil sands, a large-scale commercial application of mined oil sands technology. These froths are multiphase, composed of oil, water gas, and solids, and form an interesting kind of petroleum industry foam. This chapter presents a review of the occurrence, nature, properties, and treatment of bituminous froths. 

Originally, mud was made from clay mixed with water, a simple system. Today the preparation and treatment of drilling fluid has reached a sophistication which requires specialist knowledge. The reason for this becomes clear if we consider the properties expected. 

Deamidation of soy and other seed meal proteins by hydrolysis of the amide bond, and minimization of the hydrolysis of peptide bonds, improves functional properties of these products. For example, treatment of soy protein with dilute (0.05 A/) HCl, with or without a cation-exchange resin (Dowex 50) as a catalyst (133), with anions such as bicarbonate, phosphate, or chloride at pH 8.0 (134), or with peptide glutaminase at pH 7.0 (135), improved solubiHty, whipabiHty, water binding, and emulsifying properties. 

Chemical treatments commonly appHed to cormgated paperboard packaging materials include additives that impart various degrees of water resistance, humidity resistance, oil and grease resistance, product abrasion resistance, product corrosion resistance, adhesion release properties, flame-retardant properties, nonskid properties, and static electricity control properties to the finished package (1,2). 

Wood preservatives ate appHed either from an oil system, such as creosote, petroleum solutions of pentachlorophenol, or copper naphthanate, or a water system. Oil treatments ate relatively inert with wood material, and thus, have Htde effect on mechanical properties. However, most oil treatments require simultaneous thermal treatments, which ate specifically limited in treating standards to preclude strength losses (24). 

Melarsonyl potassium (Mel W, Trimelarsen) [13355-00-5] is a thioarsenite closely related to melarsoprol, and it also has been used for the treatment of trypanosomiasis (172). However, it appears to be more toxic and less effective than melarsoprol. The only advantage of melarsonyl potassium is that it is water-soluble and can be adrninistered intramuscularly or subcutaneously. This property is useful when the intravenous route caimot be employed. 

Alpha—beta aluminum alloys respond to heat treatment with a general improvement of mechanical properties. Heat treatment is accompHshed by heating to 815—870°C, quenching in water, and reannealing at 370—535°C, depending on the size and section of the casting. Different combinations of strength, hardness, and ductility can be obtained. Some nickel in aluminum bronze is in soHd solution with the matrix and helps refine the precipitate, and a smaller amount is in the K-intermetaUic compound. 

Silicone fluids containing Si—H groups are also used for paper treatment. The paper is immersed in a solution or dilute emulsion of the polymer containing either a zinc salt or organo-tin compound. The paper is then air-dried and heated for two minutes at 80°C to cure the resin. The treated paper has a measure of water repellency and in addition some anti-adhesive properties. 

Treatment of polymer surfaces to improve their wetting, water repulsion, and adhesive properties is now a standard procedure. The treatment is designed to change the chemistry of the outermost groups in the polymer chain without affecting bulk polymer properties. Any study of the effects of treatment therefore requires a technique that is specific mostly to the outer atomic layers this is why SSIMS is extensively used in this area. 

By the time the next overview of electrical properties of polymers was published (Blythe 1979), besides a detailed treatment of dielectric properties it included a chapter on conduction, both ionic and electronic. To take ionic conduction first, ion-exchange membranes as separation tools for electrolytes go back a long way historically, to the beginning of the twentieth century a polymeric membrane semipermeable to ions was first used in 1950 for the desalination of water (Jusa and McRae 1950). This kind of membrane is surveyed in detail by Strathmann (1994). Much more recently, highly developed polymeric membranes began to be used as electrolytes for experimental rechargeable batteries and, with particular success, for fuel cells. This important use is further discussed in Chapter 11. 

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