A process for treating frac flowback that contains barium, naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) and hardness for minimizing the amount of sludge produced that contains hazardous levels of NORM by employing a dual stage precipitation process. In the first stage a sulfate source is mixed with the frac flowback and barium sulfate and NORM is precipitated, the frac flowback is subjected to a solids-liquid separation process to produce a first effluent and a first sludge. In the second stage hardness is precipitated from the first effluent by addition of an alkali reagent, said first effluent is also subjected to solids-liquid separation producing a second effluent and a second sludge. The first sludge is recycled and mixed with the frac flowback and the sulfate source in a sufficient amount to maintain the NORM concentration in the second sludge at or below a threshold level.

Provided is a water softening system not requiring electrical or electronic actuation in which an ion regeneration process of a resin bed contained in a water treatment tank is hydraulically actuated by a sensing device held at a top of the water treatment tank with a body of the sensing device being partially embedded in the resin bed to detect ion depletion of the resin bed.

The present invention relates to a liquid treatment system having a sensor comprising a body, the body having a sensing material disposed therein, the sensing material being subject to a change in size in response to a composition of a liquid flowing therethrough; an actuating means disposed within the body and associated with the sensing material; wherein the actuating means is movable between a first position and a second position in response to the change in size of the sensing material to thereby mechanically actuate a switch member, such that when the actuating means is in the first position, flow of an actuating stream of the liquid is allowed by the switch member to thereby hydraulically actuate operation of the liquid treatment system; and when the actuating means is in the second position, flow of the actuating stream of the liquid is prevented by the switch member.

An apparatus for determining total hardness in a fluid stream utilizing an ion exchange column in a monovalent cationic form having an inlet and an outlet, where one or more monovalent ion selective electrodes are positioned either at an inlet, outlet, or at both locations simultaneously. The monovalent cation selective electrodes are in electrical communication with one another, and in fluid communication with one or more valves incorporated within a fluid path in order to introduce feed water/softened water to the monovalent cation selective electrodes. Additionally, one blending valve may be incorporated in the ion exchange column to allow a fraction of the feed (hard) water to mix with a fraction of the softened water. In this manner, the blending valve may be utilized to adjust the hardness of the water at the output.

The present invention relates to a method for determining a concentration of a scale inhibitor in a salt water comprising an analysis with a calcium/magnesium ionselective electrode of a dialyzed first sample of the salt water, and a dialyzed second sample of the salt water which was supplemented with a known concentration of the scale inhibitor. The invention further relates to a method for inhibiting incrustation in a plant which contains a salt water comprising the steps of adding a scale inhibitor to the salt water at a desired concentration, determining the actual concentration of the scale inhibitor in the salt water as above, and adding further scale inhibitor to the salt water to adjust the desired concentration. The invention further relates to a device for determining a concentration of a scale inhibitor in a salt water by the method above comprising a calcium/magnesium ionselective electrode, a dialyzing unit, and a dosage unit for supplementing the scale inhibitor to the second sample of the salt water.

A phosphorus-based calcification inhibitor (inhibitor) configured to prevent calcification of anaerobic granular sludge.

A nanocomposite composition for controlling water hardness and a method of producing the nanocomposite, is disclosed. The nanocomposite composition comprises a plurality of semi-interpenetrating polymer network/zeolite-silver nanocomposite, including a polymer matrix. The polymer matrix is dispersed with a plurality of zeolite nanoparticles and a plurality of silver nanoparticles. The method of producing semi-interpenetrating polymer networks/zeolite-silver nanocomposite as hydrogel form comprises microemulsion polymerization of monomeric mixture uses methyl methacrylate (MMA) in presence of ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EGDM) cross-linker for MMA monomer, acrylamide (AAm), acrylic acid (AAc) and linear poly vinyl alcohol (PVA) monomers in the presence of N,N-methylene bisacrylamide (MBA) cross-linker and TX-100 surfactant. Further, the prepared nanocomposite is a water hardness removal filter and an efficient inhibition of sulfate-reducing bacteria nanocomposite. Also, the water filter cartridge exhibits a stable filtration performance during large scale production with reduced fluctuation infiltration flow rate and shows highly stable behaviors in high salt concentration.

An ion removing system having an ion removing apparatus that includes a fine bubble generating part generating fine bubbles and that causes the fine bubbles to adsorb metal ions to remove the metal ions from the hard water due to supply the fine bubbles generated by the fine bubble generating part into the hard water. In addition, the ion removing system includes a primary-side flow path to supply the hard water to the ion removing apparatus, a separating apparatus that separates crystals of a metal component deposited by crystallizing the metal ions removed from the hard water by the ion removing apparatus, and a secondary-side flow path that takes out, from the separating apparatus, treated water obtained by separating the crystals. The primary-side flow path is provided with a supply-side backflow prevention mechanism.

A two-stage water treatment process. In a first stage, an incoming stream of water is processed to remove impurities and produce an outgoing stream of water usable for a first purpose and a waste stream of water not suitable for the first purpose. In a second stage, the waste stream of water is processed to remove hardness and alkalinity and produce a second outgoing stream of water suitable for a second purpose. In an exemplary embodiment, the first stage is a forward osmosis or nanofiltration process, and the first purpose includes production of potable water. The second stage includes the use of a weak acid cation resin system.

Provided is a soft-water system which connects to a main channel for supplying raw water to a place of consumption, removes at least a part of an ionic material contained in the raw water supplied through the main channel, and supplies soft water containing less ionic material than the raw water to the place of consumption. The soft-water system includes: a filter portion which receives supplied water derived from raw water, removes at least a part of an ionic material contained in the supplied water on the basis of electric power, and discharges first soft water containing less ionic material than the supplied water; and a storage portion which receives and stores the first soft water and discharges second soft water derived from the stored first soft water, wherein at least one of the first soft water and the second soft water is supplied to a place of consumption.