WATER SOFTENING PLANTS AND REDUCTION OF IRON AND MANGANESE BY MAGNETIC AND NANOBUBBLE CO2 TREATMENT: A TECHNICAL AND APPLICATIVE ANALYSIS

Human society and environment are based on water resources. Hard water with iron and manganese excess is spread across the world and softening of drinking water is widely applied for reasons of public health, client comfort, economic and environmental benefits. Also, from industrial or commercial point of view, using it produce scale deposits in water systems and equipment often result in ample technical and economic problems. Solutions of reducing its hardness and iron/manganese excess exists on the market, even with the substances presented in the work. The novelty this study brings comes from using high intensity permanent magnets arrangements and CO2 nanobubbles treatment that increased the speed, the volume of treatment, while decreasing the energy and complexity of the installation, also decreasing the pollution mark of the system. The detrimental contributions of softening, in particular the use of chemicals and energy, are taken into account in the carbon footprint of the drinking water companies. The beneficial contributions have not been included in the carbon footprint. For carbon capture in the crystallized calcite and dissolution of CO2 into the softened water, the carbon footprint is compensated by the net carbon benefit of softening.