Water Treatment Process of Betong Water Treatment Plant

Betong Water Treatment Plant is the heart of water supply for Betong and its neighbouring areas. At the moment, the treated water production capacity is at 12 million litres per day. 

The water treatment process at Betong Water Treatment Plant start with the feeding of raw water from the nearby river named Batang Layar. The delivery process is by pumping the raw water from the river to the flow split chamber. Before reaching the flow split chamber, the raw water was dosed with aluminium sulphate (alum) solution and sodium carbonate (soda) solution. Alum is added as a primary coagulant which acts as bonding agents to make the suspended particles in the raw water to stick together and create heavier particles which is called floc. Soda is added to control the acidity of the raw water within the allowable range.

Photo: Batang Layar

 

Photos: Raw Water Pumps Cages

Photo: Flow Split Chamber

The next step is to allow the formation of floc in a tank called flocculation tank. The tank was designed so that the water moves slowly and to allow the effective formation of floc. The next step is settling of floc at the sedimentation tank. At the sedimentation tank, the heavy floc will sink and will be settled at the bottom of the tank by gravity. At the end of this process, the water is called settled water and will be sent to the filters.

Photos: Flocculation Tank (top) and Sedimentation Tank (bottom)

Betong Water Treatment Plant utilize rapid gravity sand filters for settled water filtration. Filtration process will remove the remaining suspended solids in the settled water which are unable to be removed by settling process. The rapid gravity sand filters in this water treatment plant use multi graded filter media for the filters. They are commonly known as sand and gravel. The water that leave the filters is called filtered water and to be sent to a tank called clear water tank.

Photo: Rapid Gravity Sand Filter

At the entrance point to the clear water tank, the filtered water will be dosed with soda solution, chlorine solution and sodium silicofluoride (fluoride) solution before it is called the clear water. Soda is added for pH correction of the filtered water. Chlorine is for bacterial disinfection and fluoride is for tooth care purpose. The clear water or treated water will be stored in a lower level tank (clear water tank) before being pumped to the high level lank (reservoir) which will then deliver the water to the consumers by gravity feed. 

Photos: Clear Water Tank (top) and Treated Water Pumps (bottom)