Economic Study on the appilication of starch as a coagulant - aid in water treatment

Iran, for it's socio-economic development is faced with limitations,
because of growing population, economic drawbacks and shortcomings
in resources. Therefore, country planning should be based on
considering the limitations.
At present, water treatment industry in Iran is regarded as one of the
major development activities needing a comperehensive management
with both quantitative and qualitative approaches.
In this paper, emphasis has been placed on the evaluation of the
application of starch as a natural organic polymer in turbidity removal ,
due to the shortage and the high price of some coagulants. Also the
effectiveness of starch was compared with imported synthetic
polyelectrolytes.
In this research, following the determination of the starch optimum
dosage in turbidity removal in different conditions, economic
evaluation was done on the cost of the chemicals (Alume, ferric
chloride and starch).
Then, regarding the number and the capacity of water treatment plants
(WTPs) in Iran, which use Alum and ferric chloride as coagulant, the
annual cost savings of 6/878/933/300 Rials in water treatment industry
in the case of starch application was resulted.