## 4 Discussion  
The tested pilot showed various advantages. Firstly, its maintenance requirements were notably low, requiring only 2 h of operation and maintenance (O&M) work per week. This time was spent mostly on cleaning the analytical equipment and maintaining the sampling pumps, which proves the claim of low maintenance requirements of the treatment process itself. The tested system operated in a stable manner, without the need for adjustments to the process parameters or other modifications. In a full-scale implementation, this aspect could translate to reduced operational costs and downtime when compared to conventional water treatment systems that demand more O&M effort. Figure 5: PF200 comparison against a full-scale conventional plant at the Cornell University campus. It might be a good solution for specific needs of entities such as small utilities, which often operate understaffed and prefer systems that are simple and reliable. Energy efficiency was another advantage of the tested system. The low need for energy results directly from the off-grid design philosophy of the AC group, which obviously contributes to a sustainable operation. The main water pump was the primary power consumer, with a nameplate power demand of 750 W. The remaining components of the system required only a 200 W power supply necessary to maintain the automation, quality control, and data logging. According to the Smart Energy Design Assistance Center, an applied research program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a typical energy consumption required of a large surface water treatment system is equal to 2.019 Wh/gal [49]. Based on the nameplate power demand of the equipment, the peak energy consumption for the presented technology is equal to approximately 2 Wh/gal, at the flow rate of just 500 mL/s. This result positions the prototype at a similar energy efficiency to much larger facilities. Since the power demand does not scale linearly with the capacity, it leaves plenty of room for future optimization in the field of energy use. Despite the obvious advantages, the first major concern observed during testing was the excessive production of wastewater. Overall, the pilot wasted more than 10% of the total drawn raw water as combined clarifier sludge and the filter backwash stream. Depending on the conditions, technologies relying on coagulation are expected to produce less than 3% total water losses in the treatment process [50], which shows a substantial deficit in PF200 environmental metrics. Elevated environmental impact is a critical factor to address, as it raises questions about the system's overall sustainability and its potential adverse effects on the ecosystem. Pilot tests also revealed some crucial drawbacks associated with the performance of the tested system. The quality of treated water was significantly inferior when compared to the benchmark water treatment plant, as well as to the reported industry standards [51]. This outcome poses a clear competitive disadvantage, indicating that further refinement is necessary before considering it as a viable alternative to existing technologies. Figure 6 shows that when compared to the drinking water turbidity standards of different countries, the tested technology fell short of most countries' standards. CWFP was continuously meeting the US water quality standards, which are the most stringent among the analyzed sets of regulations and require turbidity below 0.3 NTU 95% of the time, and below 1 NTU for the rest of the time [4]. PF200 was not complying with the US, Polish [52], and Colombian standards [53]. For 99.5% of the time, it was meeting the least stringent, Honduran turbidity standard of 5 NTU. This value is considered by the WHO to be a bare minimum, allowing for effective subsequent disinfection with chlorine [13]. In conclusion, PF200 operating under the conditions presented in this paper, such as raw water physicochemical properties and the concentration of the coagulant, only met the 0.3 NTU US limit 45% of the time, rather than 95% of the time.