Water Treatment
Water is essential for life; but not all water in nature is prepared for human consumption.
Water collected in the subsurface or surface must be treated to ensure its health as it contains suspended solids, microorganisms and other elements that prevent it from being consumed directly without health risks. To ensure its drinkability it needs to undergo a series of processes that make it potable.
Steps
Water may have surface (rivers, lakes) or underground (extraction through wells) origin, and according to its quality may require certain purification treatment, or simply a disinfection. The water treatment process consists of the following steps:
Pretreatment
A first screening is performed to remove alien elements in the water. At this stage a first dosage of potassium permanganate or chlorine is also made.
Coagulation-Floculation-Sedimentation
This is to separate and extract the particles floating in the water.
Filtration on a bed of sand
At this stage the water still contains microflóculos, which are retained in a sandy bed.
Final chlorine dosage
In the last phase, water goes to a reservoir from which is released to the network.
Water is essential for life
Types of plants
Global Omnium/Aguas de Valencia has 25 water treatment plants that enjoy the best technology to manage a limited resource as water, in order to make it suitable for human consumption. Through various types of facilities, it manages to turn water drinkable, maximize resources in water-shortage areas by means of desalination, and clean underground water which contain a large amount of chemical elements. Whatever the water quality, Global Omnium/Aguas de Valencia makes it drinkable thanks to leading technology in the trade.
Conventional ETAPs
The drinking water treatment stations (ETAPs standing for Estaciones de Tratamiento de Aguas Potables) are facilities where water is treated to make it potable, that is: adequate for human consumption.
Currently, Global Omnium/Aguas de Valencia has 12 conventional plants, two of these: El Realón (Picassent) and La Pressa in Manises, which are able to manage volumes of 45 and 55 hm3, respectively.
Reverse Electrodyalisis Plants
Global Omnium/Aguas de Valencia outstands for technological innovation applied to the services provided. The utilization of new supply sources, from desalination of seawater and brackish water, and the regeneration of these, is an important aspect of the current management of the integrated water cycle. In this sense, within the research and use of new resources, Global Omnium/Aguas de Valencia has made significant investments.
And so, as manager of a resource as limited as water, has developed and implemented modern technologies for desalination and production of drinking water in areas where the use of desalination processes are viable.
In recent years, it has designed and built 11 plants with pioneering technology in Spain, as is the aforementioned Reverse Electro-Dialysis, in charge for the desalination process, or other technologies with a wider implementation such as Reverse Osmosis.
Carbon Filter Plants
These facilities are intended for the disposal of pesticides detected in water, motivated by their percolation through groundwater as a result of intensive agriculture in the areas of influence of aquifers.
Global Omnium/Aguas de Valencia currently has two active carbon filter plants in the province of Valencia (Carcaixent and Alzira).