The AguaClara Plant

We design built-in-place water treatment plants for populations of 1,000 - 50,000 people. Water is treated in a sequence of steps shown below that are designed to efficiently remove particles and pathogens.

**ENTRANCE TANK:** Tank that removes trash and grit and then measures the flow through the water treatment plant with a linear flow orifice meter.
**CHEMICAL DOSE CONTROLLER:** Semi-automated, flow-pacing chemical feed system for coagulant and chlorine.
**FLOCCULATOR:** High-rate and high-efficiency baffle flocculator with a 10 minute residence time, high-uniformity velocity gradient, and no moving parts.
**CLARIFIER:** Unit process that contains the floc filter and plate settlers. The floc filter has a 10 minute residence time and provides enhanced particle removal, improved flow distribution to the plate settlers, and removes sludge from the clarifier with no moving parts. The plate settlers have a 15 minute residence time and are fabricated from generic polycarbonate sheets and are located above the floc filter in the clarifier.
**STACKED RAPID SAND FILTER:** High-rate filter that is six times more compact than conventional rapid sand filters, does not use any large valves, is self cleaning without requiring any pumps, and has a residence time of less than one minute.

Reliability & Resiliency

AguaClara plants are reliable and resilient because they don’t need electricity and they have only a few moving parts. Our high-performing technologies can be maintained independently by remote communities. Some key innovations include:

The Chemical Dose Controller

A hydraulic chemical dosing system that delivers an accurate amount of chemicals without using electronics, sensors or pumps. The system automatically adjusts based on the flow rate through the plant. The operator manually sets the dose using a simple slider system. This system doses virtually any chemical, and is most commonly used to inject coagulant and chlorine.

High-Rate Flocculation-Clarification

Our enhanced flocculation-clarification process produces a floc filter that is highly efficient at removing particles. The novel clarifier design makes the system self-cleaning without internal moving parts. The sludge is removed by simply opening a drain valve.

Stacked Rapid Sand (StaRS) Filtration

Our unique StaRS filters take clarified water and divide the flow among 6 vertically stacked layers of sand. The design results in 1/6 as much area and 1/6 as much backwash water as a conventional rapid sand filter. A unique siphoning system allows the operator to backwash by opening and closing a 1/2" air valve.