The use of geotextiles for the treatment of
surface water
Ehsan Moslemizadeh
A thesis
In
The Department of
Building, Civil, and Environmental Engineering
Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree
Of
Master of Applied Science
at
Concordia University
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
February 2009
© Ehsan Moslemizadeh, 2009
Abstract
Various substances
have been discharged into water areas from the shore and rivers
through human activity. Suspended solids (SS) are examples of such
substances. SS have the potential to adsorb various substances such
as heavy metals and nutrients. In addition, SS which exist in the
water as contaminated SS, form contaminated sediments by
sedimentation. These contaminated sediments will influence human
health through the food chain. Eutrophication
is also one of the biggest environmental problems caused by organic
matter and nutrients residing in enclosed water areas. Therefore,
removal of the substances such as SS, and decreasing the amount of
COD present in the water and organic matter play an important role in
environmental treatment.
In this study,
laboratory filtration tests were performed
to develop a technique for water treatment. A
non-woven filter was used as the filter medium. The pore size and the
thickness of the filter are 150 μm and 0.2 cm, respectively. The
results showed that SS were removed to levels of 2 mg/L or less by
filtration. A SS removal efficiency of 84.3% was obtained. By
filtration, COD was also removed. The results demonstrated that there
is a linear relationship with the regression coefficient (R2)
of 0.6 to 0.9 between the elimination of SS and COD. In addition,
dissolved COD results also showed a decreasing trend through the
filtration process. Therefore, SS removal improved the quality of
water in terms of COD.
