Performance evaluation of the compact water treatment system pilot project at Timah Tasoh Water Treatment Plant, Perlis, Malaysia

Abstract

Clean water is crucial to ensuring the well-being of people. The Package Timah Tasoh Water Treatment Plant (WTP) is designed to support the existing conventional plant in coping with the growing demand for clean water. The package plant used the Compact Water Treatment System, classified as a Category B in the Suruhanjaya Perkhidmatan Air Negara (SPAN) guidelines; thus, this performance monitoring research was conducted prior to product registration. The plant consists of aeration, flocculation, clarification, and filtration processes. The performance of this package plant was monitored through comparative and efficiency analysis of removal parameters and carried out over a period of six (6) months. Twelve (12) water quality parameters were selected, including turbidity, pH, total dissolved solids (TDS), colour, ammonia, residual chlorine, aluminium, iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), fluoride, standard total coliform, and E. coli with sampling water of RW, SW, FW, and TW, which was then assessed alongside the drinking water quality standards set by Ministry of Health (MOH). As a result, eight key parameters such as pH, turbidity, colour, TDS, iron, aluminium, manganese, and ammonia were meeting the MOH drinking water quality standards in over 94 % of cases. The remaining parameters are chlorine residual, fluoride, E. coli and standard total coliform were in non-compliance due to the inoperability of disinfection and fluoridisation processes. Most of the significant parameters deduced a better performance in terms of removal efficiency (> 60 %) consistently, except for TDS, throughout the monitoring activity.