Is there a chemist in the house?

摘要

When you visit a water plant, what image are you left with? Depending on your experience, you may envision a building pulsating with the noise of pumps and motors; a vast array of tanks filled with water; or a large room of pipes and computer screens with red, green, or yellow lights. When I enter a water plant I immediately think of a large chemistry experiment-an image etched into my mind after years of dealing with a small but complicated plant in Illinois. Before the plant was built, the raw water, with 0.4 mg/L of manganese, was only chlorinated and fluoridated. Our city decided to build a plant to oxidize and remove the manganese in order to meet secondary drinking water regulations. I don't think at the time anyone involved realized the impact of that decision-the launch-ing of a challenging and often frustrating experiment in water chem-istry that is now in its 12th year.