Helper Functions & Dose Chemicals

Chemical dosing setup

To showcase tidywater’s acid-base equilibrium functions, let’s use a common water treatment problem. In this analysis, a hypothetical drinking water utility wants to know how much their pH will be impacted by varying doses of alum. They also want to ensure that their finished water has a pH of 8.

We can create a quick model by manually inputting the utility’s typical water quality. Then we’ll dose the water with their typical alum dose of 30 mg/L, and then a proposed 20mg/L dose. Finally, we’ll see how much caustic is required to raise the pH back to 8.

# Use define_water to prepare for tidywater analysis
no_alum_water <- define_water(ph = 8.3, temp = 18, alk = 150)

# Dose 30 mg/L of alum
alum_30 <- no_alum_water %>%
  chemdose_ph(alum = 30) %>%
  solvedose_ph(target_ph = 8, chemical = "naoh")

alum_30 # Caustic dose required to raise pH to 8 when 30 mg/L of alum is added
># [1] 10.3

# Dose 20 mg/L of alum
alum_20 <- no_alum_water %>%
  chemdose_ph(alum = 20) %>%
  solvedose_ph(target_ph = 8, chemical = "naoh")

alum_20 # Caustic dose required to raise pH to 8 when 20 mg/L of alum is added
># [1] 6.2

As expected, a lower alum dose requires a lower caustic dose to reach the target pH.

Note: How can you remember the difference between solvedose_ph vs chemdose_ph? Any function beginning with “solve” is named for what it is solving for based on one input: SolveWhatItReturns_Input. So, solvedose_ph is solving for a dose based on a target pH.

Other treatment functions are set up as WhatHappensToTheWater_WhatYouSolveFor. So with chemdose_ph, chemicals are being dosed, and we’re solving for the resulting pH (and other components of acid/base chemistry). chemdose_toc models the resulting TOC after chemicals are added, and dissolve_pb calculates lead solubility in the distribution system.

Multi-scenario setup and intro to _chain functions

But what if the utility wants to test a variety of alum doses on a range of their water quality? Here, we’ll use the power of tidywater’s _chain functions to extend this analysis to a full dataframe.

We’ll use tidywater’s built-in water quality data, water_df, then apply define_water_chain to convert the data to a water object. We use define_water_chain so that other models can be added to the dataframe. This function takes a dataframe input, then outputs all parameters in a water class column. This is true for all tidywater functions with the _chain suffix. _chain functions are handy in a piped code block where you’ll need to use many tidywater functions, such as chemdose_ph, chemdose_toc, etc. After applying define_water_chain, we’ll also use balance_ions_chain to create a new variable with the ions balanced for all the “raw” water objects in the dataframe.

We’ll also set a range of alum doses to see how they affect each water quality scenario.

# Set a range of alum doses

alum_doses <- tibble(alum_dose = seq(20, 60, 10))

# use tidywater's built-in synthetic data water_df, for this example
raw_water <- water_df %>%
  slice_head(n = 2) %>%
  define_water_chain(output_water = "raw") %>%
  balance_ions_chain(input_water = "raw") %>%
  # join alum doses to create several dosing scenarios
  cross_join(alum_doses)

chemdose_ph_chain and pluck_water

Now that we’re set up, let’s dose some alum! To do this, we’ll use chemdose_ph_chain, a function with the _chain suffix introduced earlier but whose tidywater base is chemdose_ph. The chemdose_ph_chain function requires dosed chemicals to match the argument’s notation. In this case, our chemical is already properly named. Other chemicals, such as caustic, ferric sulfate, soda ash and more would need to be named naoh, fe2so43, and na2co3, respectively. Most tidywater chemicals are named with their chemical formula, all lowercase and no special characters.

There are two ways to dose chemicals.

1. You can pass an appropriately named column into the function, or

2. You can specify the chemical in the function.

Let’s look at both options using the alum doses from before, and adding hydrochloric acid. You should notice that the ouputs of both methods are the same.

# 1. Use existing column in data frame to dose a chemical
dose_water <- raw_water %>%
  mutate(hcl = 5) %>%
  chemdose_ph_chain(input_water = "raw", alum = alum_dose) %>%
  pluck_water(input_water = c("raw", "dosed_chem_water"), parameter = "ph") %>%
  select(-c(raw, dosed_chem_water))

head(dose_water)
>#                                           balanced_water alum_dose hcl raw_ph
># 1 <S4 class 'water' [package "tidywater"] with 62 slots>        20   5    7.9
># 2 <S4 class 'water' [package "tidywater"] with 62 slots>        30   5    7.9
># 3 <S4 class 'water' [package "tidywater"] with 62 slots>        40   5    7.9
># 4 <S4 class 'water' [package "tidywater"] with 62 slots>        50   5    7.9
># 5 <S4 class 'water' [package "tidywater"] with 62 slots>        60   5    7.9
># 6 <S4 class 'water' [package "tidywater"] with 62 slots>        20   5    8.5
>#   dosed_chem_water_ph
># 1                6.60
># 2                6.42
># 3                6.25
># 4                6.07
># 5                5.87
># 6                6.94

# 2. Dose a chemical in the function
dose_water <- raw_water %>%
  chemdose_ph_chain(input_water = "raw", alum = alum_dose, hcl = 5) %>%
  pluck_water(input_water = c("raw", "dosed_chem_water"), parameter = "ph") %>%
  select(-c(raw, dosed_chem_water))

head(dose_water)
>#                                           balanced_water alum_dose hcl raw_ph
># 1 <S4 class 'water' [package "tidywater"] with 62 slots>        20   5    7.9
># 2 <S4 class 'water' [package "tidywater"] with 62 slots>        30   5    7.9
># 3 <S4 class 'water' [package "tidywater"] with 62 slots>        40   5    7.9
># 4 <S4 class 'water' [package "tidywater"] with 62 slots>        50   5    7.9
># 5 <S4 class 'water' [package "tidywater"] with 62 slots>        60   5    7.9
># 6 <S4 class 'water' [package "tidywater"] with 62 slots>        20   5    8.5
>#   dosed_chem_water_ph
># 1                6.60
># 2                6.42
># 3                6.25
># 4                6.07
># 5                5.87
># 6                6.94

Notice in the above code that we used the pluck_water helper function. This function uses purrr::pluck to create a new column for one selected parameter from a water class object. You can choose which water column to pluck from using the input_water argument. Next, select the parameter of interest (which must match the water slot’s name). Finally, the output column’s name will default to the form water_parameter, but there is an option to name it yourself using the output_column argument.

solvedose_ph_once

Remember, our original task is to see how alum addition affects the pH, but the finished water pH needs to be 8. First, we’ll use caustic to raise the pH to 8. solvedose_ph_once uses solvedose_ph to calculate the required chemical dose (as chemical, not product) based on a target pH. Similar to chemdose_ph_chain, solvedose_ph_once can handle chemical selection and target pH inputs as a column or function arguments. Helpers with the _once suffix are for tidywater functions that output numbers instead of waters, including the base function solvedose_ph, and will output numeric doses, not water objects. Thus, solvedose_ph_chain doesn’t exist because the water isn’t changing, so chaining this function to a downstream tidywater function can be done using normal tidywater operations.

solve_ph <- raw_water %>%
  chemdose_ph_chain("raw", alum = alum_dose) %>%
  mutate(target_ph = 8) %>%
  solvedose_ph_once(input_water = "dosed_chem_water", chemical = c("naoh", "mgoh2")) %>%
  select(-c(raw, dosed_chem_water))

head(solve_ph)
>#                                           balanced_water alum_dose target_ph
># 1 <S4 class 'water' [package "tidywater"] with 62 slots>        20         8
># 2 <S4 class 'water' [package "tidywater"] with 62 slots>        20         8
># 3 <S4 class 'water' [package "tidywater"] with 62 slots>        30         8
># 4 <S4 class 'water' [package "tidywater"] with 62 slots>        30         8
># 5 <S4 class 'water' [package "tidywater"] with 62 slots>        40         8
># 6 <S4 class 'water' [package "tidywater"] with 62 slots>        40         8
>#   chemical dose_required
># 1     naoh           8.3
># 2    mgoh2           6.1
># 3     naoh          12.3
># 4    mgoh2           9.0
># 5     naoh          16.5
># 6    mgoh2          12.0

Now that we have the dose required to raise the pH to 8, let’s dose caustic into the water!

dosed_caustic_water <- raw_water %>%
  chemdose_ph_chain(input_water = "raw", output_water = "alum_dosed", alum = alum_dose) %>%
  solvedose_ph_once(input_water = "alum_dosed", target_ph = 8, chemical = "naoh") %>%
  chemdose_ph_chain(input_water = "alum_dosed", output_water = "caustic_dosed", naoh = dose_required) %>%
  pluck_water(input_water = "caustic_dosed", "ph") %>%
  select(-c(raw:balanced_water, alum_dosed))

head(dosed_caustic_water)
>#   alum_dose target_ph chemical dose_required
># 1        20         8     naoh           8.3
># 2        30         8     naoh          12.3
># 3        40         8     naoh          16.5
># 4        50         8     naoh          20.5
># 5        60         8     naoh          24.4
># 6        20         8     naoh           6.2
>#                                            caustic_dosed caustic_dosed_ph
># 1 <S4 class 'water' [package "tidywater"] with 62 slots>             7.99
># 2 <S4 class 'water' [package "tidywater"] with 62 slots>             7.98
># 3 <S4 class 'water' [package "tidywater"] with 62 slots>             8.00
># 4 <S4 class 'water' [package "tidywater"] with 62 slots>             8.02
># 5 <S4 class 'water' [package "tidywater"] with 62 slots>             8.01
># 6 <S4 class 'water' [package "tidywater"] with 62 slots>             7.99

You can see the resulting pH from dosing caustic has raised the pH to 8 +/- 0.02 SU. Doses are rounded to the nearest 0.1 mg/L to make the calculations go a little faster.

Speed it up

As you use more tidywater helper functions with larger data sets, you’ll notice the code can take a few minutes to run. All helper functions use functions from the furrr package. To reduce processing time, you can activate furrr’s parallel processing power by using plan() at the beginning of your script. plan() depends on what type of operating system you have, more info on that in the Controlling How Futures are Resolved table.

# For most operating systems, especially Windows, use this at the beginning of your script
# We recommend removing the `workers` argument to use your computer's full power.
plan(multisession, workers = 2)

# rest of script

# At the end of the script, here's an option to explicitly close the multisession processing
plan(sequential)

Summary

In this tutorial, we were introduced to tidywater helper functions _chain and _once, which can be used to apply base functions to a dataframe. Outputs of _chain functions are water objects, meanwhile outputs of _once functions are numerical. We also used the pluck_water helper function to extract parameters of interest from our dataframes.

We implemented these helper functions to complete an example dosing water with coagulant (alum) and adjusting the resulting pH to a target pH of 8 using solvedose_ph and chemdose_ph functions. To try another example with helper functions and learn about the blend_waters function, see vignette("blend_waters", package = "tidywater").