Data for: Towards an improved coagulation-flocculation optimisation strategy: A population balance approach.

Conventional drinking water treatment comprises four steps: coagulation-flocculation, sedimentation, filtration, and disinfection. Due to its impact on the efficiency of the entire process, coagulation-flocculation is a critical stage of the treatment train. Given its decisive role, the optimisation of water treatment must pass through the optimisation of coagulation-flocculation. However, the prevalent optimisation strategies have serious limitations, which can be addressed by incorporating key floc properties, such as size and shape, that are often characterised with a Particle Size Distribution (PSD) and fractal dimension, respectively. The ideal albeit seldom explored way of advancing current optimisation methodologies is by using the Population Balance Modelling (PBM) framework, which explicitly integrates and tracks the time evolution of these important properties. Alas, the currently used physical expressions that need to be coupled with the framework could not capture observed dynamics. To address their pitfalls and improve them, the reasons behind their underperformance were identified and a new expression was introduced based on the insights into aggregation mechanisms gained from experimentation. Accordingly, this work presents the development, calibration, and validation of a coagulation-flocculation PBM model capable of predicting complex floc dynamics. The results show that this innovative approach is interpretable, reflects the phenomenological understanding of the studied system, and performs strikingly better than state-of-the-art strategies. Finally, this study spearheads the development of better and more explainable optimisation strategies that can decisively contribute to the digitalisation and sustainability of water treatment.