THE ELECTRICAL PURIFICATION OF SEWAGE AND CONTAMINATED WATER.[[1]]
By WM. WEBSTER.
The term sewage many years ago was rightly applied to the excremental refuse of towns, but it is a most difficult matter to define the liquid that teems into our rivers under the name of sewage to-day; in most towns "chemical refuse" is the best name for the complex fluid running from the sewers.
It is now more than ten years since I first commenced a series of experiments with a view of thoroughly testing various methods of purifying sewage and water contaminated with putrefying organic matter. It was while investigating the action of iron salts upon organic matter in solution and splitting up the chlorides present by means of electrolysis, that I first became aware of the importance of precipitating the soluble organic matter in such manner that no chemical solution should take the place of the precipitated organic matter. If chemical matter is substituted for the organic compounds, the cure is worse than the disease, as the resulting solution in most cases sets up after precipitation in the river into which it flows.
My first electrolytical experiments were conducted with non-oxidizable plates of platinum and carbon, but the cost of the first and the impossibility of obtaining carbon plates that would stand long-continued action of nascent chlorine and oxygen made it desirable that some modification should be tried. I next tried the effect of electrolytic action when iron salts were present, but did not think of using iron electrodes until after trying aluminum. I found that the action of non-oxidizable electrodes was most efficacious after the temperature of the fluid acted upon rose 4° or 5°; but the cost of working made it impossible on a large scale.
After a long series of experiments, iron plates were used as electrodes, with remarkable results, for the compounds of iron formed not only deodorized the samples of sewage acted on, but produced complete precipitation of the matters in suspension, and also of the soluble organic matter; the resulting effluents remaining perfectly free from putrefaction. The first part of the process is well illustrated by the small experiments now shown; the organic matter in suspension and in solution separates into flocculent particles, which rise to the top of the liquid and remain until the bubbles of hydrogen which have carried them up escape, when the solid matter will precipitate. In the arrangement adopted on a working scale, the separated particles precipitate readily. As an illustration of the action upon organic matter in solution I take a small quantity of dye, mix it with water, and placing the connected iron electrodes in the mixture, the dye in solution separates into flocculent particles. The electrolytical action is of course easily understood, but the chemical changes that take place need an explanation. At the positive pole, hypochlorite of iron seems to be formed at first, but this is quickly changed into a protochloride, and as at the negative pole an alkaline reaction takes place, the iron salt is precipitated in the form of the ferrous hydrated oxide, together with the organic matters in suspension and solution. Owing to the carbonates that are always present in sewage, ferrous carbonate is also formed.
The success of these laboratory experiments led me to a trial of the process on a larger scale, for hitherto only a gallon at any one time had been treated.
Small brick tanks were erected at my wharf at Peckham and iron electrodes fitted to them.