Cover
Vol. 1 No. 1 (2025)

Published: December 14, 2025

Pages: 70-76

Research Article

Efficiency of Horizontal Spiral Flocculator for Turbidity Removal

Zainab Radhi Thamer 1 Dina Ali Yaseen 2 Saad Abu-Alhail Arab
1College of Engineering, Basrah university, Basrah, Iraq
2Civil engineering department, College of Engineering, Basrah University
History
  • Received: September 22, 2025
  • Revised: October 17, 2025
  • Accepted: November 25, 2025
  • Available Online: December 14, 2025

Abstract

An experimental work was conducted to evaluate the performance of the helical flocculation system. The chapter presents the effects of varying hydraulic and geometric parameters, including flow rate, tube diameter, and pipe diameter, on the flocculation efficiency. Three experiments were operated using artificial turbid water, and the water of Shatt Al-Arab River to assess its practical performance. The aim of this study is to evaluate the efficiency of a laboratory scale horizontal spiral flocculator for turbidity removal from both artificial and Shatt Al-Arab water, demonstrating its potential as an alternative for decentralized treatment systems. The treatment system was successfully operated for the treatment of artificial turbid water. The experiment showed optimal turbidity removal of 86.6% and 85.6% treating artificial turbid water and 83% treating Shatt Al-Arab water. The application of spiral flocculator on Shatt Al- Arab water was validated the results of artificial turbid water showing a removal efficiency of 83.9% at a residence time of 20.8 min, corresponding efficiency for the synthetic water of 85.6% at detention time of 19.08 min. Mean particle size distribution analyses relating system application to Shatt Al- Arab water confirmed the results of turbidity removal and demonstrate the effectiveness of the treatment stages in promoting floc formation and particle flocculation.

Keywords

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