WHITE PAPER

A Treatise on Turbidity and TSS

By Dr. Marcus Allhands, PE

Orival, Inc.

When two distinct physical parameters are used interchangeably, an intimate

understanding of both is in order to know when this is justifiable. Two such
parameters are turbidity and total suspended solids. In many industries today
the concentration of total suspended solids is of utmost importance to quality
control and process optimization. However, the measurement most often
employed is turbidity. Before pursuing why this is so, a definition and discussion
of each is in order.

For the purposes of simplicity, the assumption will be made that the carrier fluid
is liquid water throughout this treatise. Total suspended solids or TSS is to be
differentiated from total solids, settleable solids and dissolved solids. As inferred,
total solids is the sum of suspended, settleable and dissolved solids. Total solids
is all the residue left after a volume of liquid sample has been totally evaporated
away in an oven held between 103 and 105C (217 and 221F). This is
expressed as a concentration usually in milligrams per liter (mg/L) or for water
this is equivalent to parts per million (ppm).

Settleable solids are those materials that settle out of a suspension within a
specified period of time. Floating material may also be included in this definition.
The results are expressed as milligrams of solids per liter of water (mg/L or ppm).
These solids may or may not be a problematic issue in water usage since they
primarily remain in the bottom of a sump somewhere and are seldom entrained in
the water flow.

Dissolved solids, formerly referred to as filterable solids in Standard Methods for

the Examination of Water and Wastewater prior to the 16th edition, are those
solids small enough to pass through a filter of 2.0 micron nominal pore size.
These are dried and expressed as a concentration in mg/L or ppm. When
dissolved solids concentrations become so high that they begin to precipitate out
of solution due to saturation, they can become a big problem. This is usually
minimized in industrial applications by blowdown and dilution with fresh water or
by artificially raising the saturation point with proprietary chemicals.

The solids retained by the filter in the procedure just described are defined as
suspended solids. Standard Methods uses method 2540D labeled Total
Suspended Solids Dried at 103-105C to determine the concentration of TSS in
a water sample. The use of 103-105C temperatures prevents any volatile solids
from being driven off with the evaporating water. However, these low
temperatures make the test procedure an iterative one to determine when all the
water has been removed. Therefore, the simple test takes many minutes or
hours of time. Another note of importance is that the results are not the TSS of
the process water but only of the sample collected. This may or may not
represent the total process water volume.

Why is TSS important? Suspended solids can adhere to heat transfer surfaces
such as those found in heat exchangers, cooling ducts and radiators. As these
solids form a layer on the heat exchange surfaces, the heat transfer coefficient is
greatly reduced affecting the rate of heat exchange. This can have devastating
effects on processes requiring temperatures to be held to very tight tolerances.
Where tolerances are not so tight, an increase in water flow rate is required to
maintain steady state temperatures in a system thereby raising energy costs to
provide the additional horsepower needed. Other applications include nozzles
that must be protected from solid particles large enough to plug the orifice of a
nozzle. By keeping TSS concentrations low and by providing a physical size
cutoff in particles in the system, such nozzles can be protected. The reasoning
can be totally different in cooling tower health and many municipal applications.
Very few microbes can actually replicate in a free floating state. They must
adhere to a surface stratum to reproduce. Suspended solids provide enormous
surface areas when all the particles are taken in aggregate. Less TSS means
less surface area on which microbes can reproduce, thus less microbes.
Organic TSS can also sequester disinfectants such as chlorine and ozone
requiring more of these products to successfully control potential pathogenic
microorganisms.

Now that we know what TSS is, how it is determined and why it is important, let
us look at turbidity. While TSS is a natural parameter, turbidity is a little more
ambiguous. Standard Methods says it best when it describes turbidity as: an
expression of the optical property that causes light to be scattered or absorbed.
Light is scattered or absorbed by our old friend, suspended solids. However,
whereas TSS is simply a mass per unit volume (i.e. milligrams per liter) or how
much and has no regard for what makes up the particles, turbidity is a
measurement of how those particles reflect and absorb light. It is not necessary
a question of how many suspended solid particles there are nor the total mass of
such particles but has more to do with their size, shape and refractive index. In
very simplified terms, turbidity has little to do with quantity and a lot to do with
shiny.

The measurement of turbidity has changed throughout the years. Originally a

long glass tube, similar to a long flat-bottomed test tube, was held over a candle
flame. A laboratory technician would look down through the tube at the candles
flame and slowly pour water into the tube. When the cloudiness of the water
caused the flame to disappear in the eyes of the technician, the depth of water
was measured in the tube and this became known as the turbidity and was
expressed in Jackson Candle Units. The tube became know as the Jackson
Candle Turbidimeter. This early definition of turbidity dealt less with the
scattering of light and more with the absorption of light and really measured the
light transmissivity of the water sample. As time went on the device to measure
turbidity took on the form of a tungsten filament light source at a color
temperature of 2200 to 3000K that impinges on a water sample held in a clear
glass sample cell. A spectral peak response detector tuned between 300 and
400 nm was located at an angle to the incident light beam to measure the
amount of light reflected towards the detector. Eventually this angle, which
varied from laboratory to laboratory for a number of years, was fixed at 90. This
instrument is called a nephelometer and gives values in nephelometric turbidity
units or NTU. It is now the standard instrument for turbidity measurements. A
specified concentration of formazin suspension is defined as 4000 NTU and is
used to calibrate all nephelometers today.

What is the quandary? Turbidity is often used as a surrogate for TSS. It is really
TSS that often needs to be monitored and controlled but, as we have already
seen, TSS analysis is an inexpensive but time consuming process and gives
results for a grab sample only. A nephelometer can measure turbidity on a
continuous real-time basis. It requires no wait and a continuous chart recorder
can give hard copy records over long periods of time. In most cases turbidity is
measured simply because of convenience. In many applications an empirical
relationship between turbidity measurements and TSS values can be determined
within acceptable limits. Other times there is no relationship nor can one be
inferred. Many particle properties can affect turbidity. Shape, size and surface
characteristics can have a big influence on turbidity but do not correlate to TSS
concentrations. Smaller particles tend to impact turbidity more than larger
particles but larger particles affect TSS concentrations more than small ones.
The smallest black dot on this page distinguishable by the unaided eye is
somewhere between 40 and 50 microns in diameter. Turbidity is influenced
greatest by particles less than 5 microns in size. Think of a water sample with a
TSS value of 100 mg/L made up of carbon black particles. The reading on a
nephelometer measuring light scattering will be quite different than a sample
having 100 mg/L of aluminum spheres. If the TSS is always made up of carbon
black of similar particle sizes then a relationship may be established. But if
materials that constitute the TSS vary or the particle sizes and shapes vary with
time, a TSS/turbidity relationship probably will not exist.

When measuring turbidity as a surrogate for TSS, simply remember that it is just
that, a surrogate. Know that the established relationship between the two may
vary over time so recheck the conversion with periodic TSS analyses done in a
certified laboratory. The ORV, ORG, OR and ORE series of automatic self-
cleaning screen filters from Orival, Inc. are designed for the removal of TSS.
Screens with micron ratings from 3000 microns down to 10 microns are available
with filter sizes ranging from 3/4 to 24. Single units have flow rates from 10
gpm to 12,000 gpm and multiple units can be installed on Orival fabricated
manifolds for unlimited combinations. With a given TSS and a particle size
distribution, Orival specialists can tell you the TSS reduction obtainable from any
given screen rating. However, the turbidity reduction cannot be accurately
determined but only estimated for reasons previously presented. Contact the
author at (765) 987-7843 or [email protected] for further discussion on TSS,
turbidity and automatic filtration. Visit www.orival.com.