Groundwater sources in the West Siberian region: Chemical composition, analysis, and water treatment technologies

Abstract

One-fifth of the Russian population does not have access to centralized water supply sources and consumes water without preliminary treatment. Moreover, the gas and oil extracting industries and facilities suffer without a centralized water supply. It requires an immediate solution to providing high-quality water that would meet human life needs. The West Siberian region is actively developing industrially. Despite the abundance of water bodies in Western Siberia, groundwater is the only available water source. It is because surface waters are environmentally unprotected from anthropogenic impact, and the use of groundwater is limited by both the density of humic compounds and the increased density of iron ions, which is typical for the West Siberian region. We analyzed more than three hundred groundwater chemical composition samples in Western Siberia, Russia. Analyzing the samples, we found out that the groundwater includes such compounds as ionic iron (hydro carbonate iron) and iron associated with organic elements (colloidal), color index, salinity, and hydro-carbons density, silicon ions, and organic components. Due to this research, we assessed the groundwater classification. The first type of groundwater classification contains hydro-carbonate iron; however, the second one contains colloidal iron compounds associated with organic elements. We determined that it would be incorrect to measure these two types of groundwater color index similarly. Therefore, the recommendation on measuring the groundwater color index of the second type is correctly revealed. It is essential to verify the groundwater impurities quantitative substance and its ratio, size, and charge of the dispersed phase. We also analyzed the current groundwater treatment procedures and approaches to remove iron from groundwater. The hydro-carbonate iron can be removed from the groundwater by applying the oxidation-filtration method so that the iron content in the form of colloidal iron compounds does not decrease to the maximum permissible concentration values. We determined for the second type, it is better to use membrane filtration, electric discharge, and sorption methods of purification in a particular sequence to ensure the efficacious deletion of iron, silicon, and organic components. This way, the groundwater will not lose other essential microelements. The proposed groundwater classification will instantly identify the problem, considering the water characteristics while analyzing indicators to obtain an accurate result and select further groundwater treatment stages.