What is polymer water treatment?

What is a polymer?
Polymers are compounds made of molecules joined together in chains. These chains are usually long and can be repeated to increase the size of the molecular structure. Individual molecules in a chain are called monomers, and the chain structure can be manually manipulated or modified to achieve specific properties and properties.
The creation of multi-purpose modeling clays is an application of modified polymer molecular structures. In this article, however, we will focus on polymers in industry, specifically polymer water treatment.

How can polymers be used in water treatment?
Polymers are very useful in wastewater treatment. In a basic sense, the role of these molecular chains is to separate the solid component of the wastewater from its liquid component. Once the two components of wastewater have been separated, it is easier to complete the process by separating the solid and treating the liquid, leaving clean water so it can be disposed of safely or for other industrial applications.
In this sense, a polymer is a flocculant — a substance that reacts with solids suspended in water to form clumps called floc. This is very useful in wastewater treatment processes, so polymers are often used alone to enable flocculation, which can easily remove solids. However, in order to get the best results from this process, polymer flocculants are often used with coagulants.
Coagulants take the flocculation process to the next level, gathering flocs together to form a thick layer of sludge that can then be removed or treated further. Polymer flocculation can occur prior to the addition of coagulants or can be used to accelerate the electrocoagulation process. Because electrocoagulation has both advantages and disadvantages, the use of polymer flocculants to optimize the process is an attractive proposition for facility managers.

Different types of water treatment polymers
Polymer water treatment can work in different ways depending on the kind of monomer used to form the polymer chain. Polymers generally fall into two broad categories. They are cationic and anionic, referring to the relative charges of the molecular chains.

Anionic polymers in water treatment
Anionic polymers are negatively charged. This makes them particularly suitable for flocculating inorganic solids, such as clay, silt or other forms of soil, from waste solutions. Wastewater from mining projects or heavy industry may be rich in this solid content, so anionic polymers may be particularly useful in such applications.

Cationic polymers in water treatment
In terms of its relative charge, a cationic polymer is basically the opposite of an anionic polymer because it has a positive charge. The positive charge of cationic polymers makes them ideal for removing organic solids from wastewater solutions or mixtures. Because civil sewage pipes tend to contain large amounts of organic matter, cationic polymers are often used in municipal sewage treatment plants, although agricultural and food processing facilities also use these polymers.

Common cationic polymers include:
Polydimethyl diallyl ammonium chloride, polyamine, polyacrylic acid/sodium polyacrylate, cationic polyacrylamide, etc.