The micro-carrier process recently developed at NJIT is a new high rate settling technology for water and wastewater treatment. This process utilizes the micro-cater as a flocculating enhancement agent to achieve rapid removal of colloidal particles. This thesis consist of two parts, namely, 1) A review of the flocculation process utilized in water and wastewater treatment, and 2) An experimental program to evaluate the role of zeta potential in the flocculation process.

The results of this study indicated that the DLVO theory (Darjaguin, Landau, Overbeek, Verwey theory) is applicable to micro-cater process in the absence of polyelectrolytes. The best flocculation was achieved when the zeta potential approached the minimum value. It was observed that in the presence of different polyelectrolytes non-DLVO forces have a significant impact.