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Fouling formation and chemical control in drip irrigation systems using treated wastewater

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Abstract

Drip irrigation systems are prone to changes in flow rate (FR) and increasing coefficients of variation (CV) when fed with treated wastewater, due to fouling inside the drippers. A model system was designed to measure the FR and fouling accumulation in laterals and drippers under different treatment conditions. A novel approach was taken to compare the different maintenance treatments. A comparison of chlorination and acidification strategies showed that daily chlorination and periodic acidification may prolong proper functioning of the drippers by maintaining a normal FR [(up to ±7 %) of nominal FR] and CV (<7 %) index in correlation with low fouling accumulation in the pipeline (<0.01 mg deposit/cm 2pipe ). Current recommendations for the frequency of conventional treatments were found to be insufficient. Chemical analyses of the fouling inside the dripper and accumulated on the pipe wall showed that biofilm can survive inside the dripper under harsh environmental conditions, even when the pipeline stays clean. These results shed light on biofilm growth and survival mechanisms inside the dripper and may pave the way to developing new treatments or improving dripper design.

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Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the BMBF-Germany and the MOST-Israel: “On-line detection, treatment, and reduction of biofilm and chemical scaling in irrigation systems utilizing treated wastewater (TWW)” project and also wish to thank the Chief Scientist of the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development for the financial support of the project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture Food and Environment, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 76100, Rehovot, Israel

    Sagi Katz, Yona Chen & Jorge Tarchitzky

  2. Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, 32000, Haifa, Israel

    Carlos Dosoretz

Authors
  1. Sagi Katz
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  2. Carlos Dosoretz
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  3. Yona Chen
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  4. Jorge Tarchitzky
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sagi Katz.

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Communicated by J. Li.

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Katz, S., Dosoretz, C., Chen, Y. et al. Fouling formation and chemical control in drip irrigation systems using treated wastewater. Irrig Sci 32, 459–469 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00271-014-0442-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00271-014-0442-4

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