Fundamentals of Water Treatment Unit Processes

Book Preface

This book is intended primarily as a text for a course in water treatment normally taught to seniors or first-year graduate students. The academic background needed includes the basic undergraduate courses in engineering, that is, mathematics, general chemistry, and fluid mechanics.

The main thrust of the book was to delineate principles that support practice. The ‘‘unit processes’’ approach was the organizing concept. Most of the principles identified are common to any kind of water treatment, for example, drinking water, municipal wastewater, industrial water, industrial wastewater, and hazardous wastewater. The book seeks to identify the strands of theory rather than to keep up with the latest technologies. The underlying idea was that technologie change but principles remain constant.

The chapters are sprinkled with boxes which are explanatory asides. The idea of the boxes was to enlarge the reader’s perspective of a topic by including some of the lore and history. Understanding how we arrived at our present state of the art places it in a more logical context. The book intends not only to provide technical proficiency but also to add insight and understanding of the broader aspects of water treatment unit processes. As a note, boxes of living persons were not included without their respective verbal permissions. In writing biography boxes, I did not consider persons who were of my generation or younger, albeit I know many who would warrant such consideration, but perhaps from a younger writer.

The book is organized as follows: Parts I through IV (Chapters 1 through 21) are distillations of Water Treatment Unit Processes—Physical and Chemical (CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL, 2006). Part V (Chapters 22 and 23 and on biological treatment) was developed for this book. The intent was to abstract key principles of unit processes with minimal amplification. The 2006 book is more comprehensive, with additional theory and examples of practice. Problems are intended to illustrate principles, but with regard to practice. The SI (kg-m-s) system of units has been used; other metric units have been used as needed. The equivalent U.S. customary units are shown in most tables and figures.

David Hendricks