Why can water treatment polyaluminium chloride maintain high flocculation efficiency in source water at various temperatures?
Publish Time: 2025-09-02
In modern water treatment technology, coagulation is a key step in removing suspended solids, colloidal particles, organic matter, and some heavy metal ions. As a highly effective inorganic polymer flocculant, water treatment polyaluminium chloride has become a core agent in the water treatment field due to its strong adaptability, low dosage, rapid floc formation, and excellent settling performance. Especially when exposed to source water at varying temperatures, water treatment polyaluminium chloride maintains stable flocculation results, making it widely used in industries such as drinking water purification, wastewater treatment, papermaking, textile printing and dyeing, mining, and oil extraction. Its excellent low-temperature adaptability and excellent solubility are the fundamental reasons for its continued high efficiency in complex water environments.1. Molecular Structure Advantage: Pre-hydrolyzed Form Enhances ReactivityThe key difference between water treatment polyaluminium chloride and traditional aluminum salts (such as aluminum sulfate) lies in its unique chemical structure. Water treatment polyaluminium chloride is not a simple aluminum ion compound. Instead, it pre-generates a variety of highly charged, multinuclear aluminum hydroxy complexes, such as Al₁₃O₄(OH)₂₄⁷⁺ (Al₁₃), by controlling the degree of hydrolysis of aluminum salts. Once added to water, these pre-hydrolyzed products eliminate the need for the water environment to complete the hydrolysis and polymerization process, as traditional coagulants do. This significantly shortens reaction time and improves flocculation efficiency.Under low temperatures, the thermal motion of water molecules slows, significantly reducing the hydrolysis rate of traditional coagulants. This results in slow floc formation, fine particles, and difficulty in settling. However, water treatment polyaluminium chloride, with its pre-activated flocculating structure, rapidly neutralizes suspended particles, forms adsorbent bridges, and captures and sweeps them, even in low-temperature source water. This rapidly forms large, dense alum flocs, achieving efficient solid-liquid separation. This characteristic makes it particularly suitable for water treatment plants in northern regions or high-altitude areas, where source water temperatures can be low in winter.2. Excellent Solubility: Ensures Rapid and Uniform Dispersion of the AgentWater treatment polyaluminium chloride has excellent water solubility, allowing both liquid and solid products to dissolve quickly and disperse evenly in water. This characteristic is crucial in practical applications, especially in automated dosing systems or high-flow treatment scenarios. Good solubility prevents pipe blockages and uneven dosing, ensuring a continuous and stable coagulation reaction.This excellent solubility means that water treatment polyaluminium chloride can quickly release effective aluminum species, enabling them to participate in the flocculation reaction promptly. Even at low temperatures, its solubility rate remains high, preventing crystallization or precipitation due to cooling. This stable solubility ensures effective utilization of the agent in a variety of source water conditions, reducing agent waste and improving treatment efficiency.3. Wide Adaptability: Meeting the Complex Water Quality Requirements of Various IndustriesThanks to its high performance across a wide temperature range and excellent chemical stability, water treatment polyaluminium chloride is widely used in various industrial sectors. In water and wastewater treatment, polyaluminium chloride is used to remove turbidity, color, algae, and some phosphates, making it suitable for deep treatment of surface water, groundwater, and municipal wastewater. In the papermaking industry, it acts as a retention and drainage aid, improving the retention of fillers and fine fibers while also improving paper strength. In the textile printing and dyeing industry, polyaluminium chloride effectively removes dye molecules and suspended solids, reducing wastewater color and COD, helping companies meet emission standards.In addition, in industries such as mining and oil extraction, polyaluminium chloride is used to treat process wastewater with high suspended solids, high salinity, and strong acidity and alkalinity. For example, in oilfield produced water, polyaluminium chloride effectively flocculates oil droplets and silt particles, improving the quality of reinjection water. In mine tailings water, it removes heavy metal ions and suspended mineral particles, mitigating environmental pollution. These applications often involve extreme water quality conditions and temperature fluctuations, and polyaluminium chloride, with its wide adaptability and stable flocculation properties, demonstrates its irreplaceable advantages.In summary, the key to water treatment polyaluminium chloride's ability to maintain efficient flocculation in source water at various temperatures lies in the high reactivity imparted by its pre-hydrolyzed polymer structure, the rapid dispersion capability enabled by its excellent solubility, and its wide adaptability to complex water conditions. Whether it's low-temperature water sources in the cold winter or high-temperature, highly turbid industrial wastewater, water treatment polyaluminium chloride consistently exerts its charge neutralization, adsorption bridging, and netting effects, achieving highly efficient purification.