Comparison of brush settler and conventional settler

Conventional settling basins are designed primarily to remove suspended solids from wastewater. Traditional Solid/Liquid Separation processes include clarifiers and plate setters. In innovative unit called a brush settler has recently been proposed. Preliminary testing with this unit has been performed using an industrial waste. The brush settler when tested and compared to the clarifier and plate setters, has consistently out performed both of these traditional technologies over a very wide range of hydraulic loading rates. The traditional clarifier achieved 60 percent removal at an overflow rate of 200 gpd/ft². This solids removal efficiency dropped to 20 percent at an overflow rate of 1000 gpd/ft². The brush clarifier treating the same waste over the same range of loading rates provided an solids removal efficiency which was consistently at 70 percent or higher. The brush clarifier also out performed the plate settler which showed a variation of 68 to 40 percent removal over the stated hydraulic overflow range. This is a very promising technology for small scale industrial applications where space is a limitation and high removal efficiencies are required.