A treatment system turns raw water — from a borehole, a river or a mains network — into water suited to a specific use. The chain varies with the source and the objective, but the logic stays the same: remove the coarsest material first, refine next, make it safe last.
The standard stages
- Pre-treatment: screening and sand filtration for suspended solids.
- Coagulation-flocculation: fine particles are aggregated so they can settle out.
- Filtration: cartridges, activated carbon or filter media, depending on what has to be retained.
- Softening: ion exchange to remove calcium and magnesium.
- Reverse osmosis: a semi-permeable membrane retains up to 99% of dissolved salts.
- Disinfection: chlorine, ozone or ultraviolet to eliminate micro-organisms.
Why the order matters
Each stage protects the next. Sending water loaded with suspended solids straight onto a reverse osmosis membrane will foul it within weeks. Correct pre-treatment is what determines the service life of the whole installation.
Sizing makes the difference
Two parameters govern everything: the flow rate required and the quality of the incoming water. Undersized equipment saturates; oversized, it is expensive and performs poorly at part load. That is what the preliminary analysis is for.