Apparatus and Method for Clarifying Water

Abstract

An apparatus and method of producing and using aluminum slurry containing aluminum particles having an extremely small size. In particular, a particle size that is small enough to freely flow through water filtration filters. Once the aluminum particles react with phosphorus, phosphates, and other contaminants, the resulting particles are large enough to be trapped by filters such that the contaminants can be easily removed. The aluminum slurry is created by the use of a unique process which rapidly transforms electrically charged aluminum plates into slurry. The resulting slurry is then added to the body of water where it disperses throughout the water and flocculates with the contaminants. The resulting clumps produced by the reaction are large enough to be trapped by filters in the water treatment facility.

1 . An apparatus for producing aluminum slurry, comprising:
 a plurality of aluminum plates, the aluminum plates separated from one another via nonconductive spacers; and   connection means to attach an electrical power source to preselected aluminum plates.   
     
     
         2 . An apparatus, as in  claim 1 , wherein:
 a DC power source attached to the connection means.   
     
     
         3 . An apparatus, as in  claim 3 , wherein:
 the DC power source is a low-voltage DC power producing approximately 12 Volt DC; and   means to reverse the polarity of the low-voltage DC power source at predetermined time intervals.