title: Using turbidity for designing water networks.
abstract: Some methods to design water networks with minimum fresh water consumption are based on the selection of a key contaminant. In most of these "single contaminant methods", a maximum allowable concentration of contaminants must be established in water demands and water sources. Turbidity is not a contaminant concentration but is a property that represents the "sum" of other contaminants, with the advantage that it can be cheaper and easily measured than biological oxygen demand, chemical oxygen demand, suspended solids, dissolved solids, among others. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate that turbidity can be used directly in the design of water networks just like any other contaminant concentration. A mathematical demonstration is presented and in order to validate the mathematical results, the design of a water network for a guava fudge production process is performed. The material recovery pinch diagram and nearest neighbors algorithm were used for the design of the water network. Nevertheless, this water network could be designed using other single contaminant methodologies. The maximum error between the expected and the real turbidity values in the water network was 3.3%. These results corroborate the usefulness of turbidity in the design of water networks.
authors.affiliation: Grupo de Trabajo académico en Hidráulica y Ambiental, Universidad Nacional de Colombia sede Manizales, Campus la Nubia - Bloque L. Km 9 vía al Aeropuerto la Nubia, Colombia. Electronic address: jacastanoh@unal.edu.co.
authors.forename: J A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Castaño
authors.affiliation: Grupo de Trabajo en procesos Químicos Catalíticos y Biotecnológicos, Universidad Nacional de Colombia sede Manizales, Campus la Nubia - Bloque L. Km 9 vía al Aeropuerto la Nubia, Colombia. Electronic address: jchiguitav@unal.edu.co.
authors.forename: J C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Higuita
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D057919:Biological Oxygen Demand Analysis; D005618:Fresh Water / Q000737:chemistry; D062070:Hydrology / Q000379:methods*; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D014867:Water; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical / Q000032:analysis / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical; D014867:Water
keywords: Food industry; Network design; Pinch analysis; Turbidity; Wastewater; Water minimization