Would you consider mobile cooling tower and WWT solutions?
For industrial companies that use cooling towers in their facilities, some form of cooling tower water treatment system is usually required to ensure an efficient process and long equipment life. Leaving tower water untreated can reduce plant productivity due to organic growth, dirt, scale, and corrosion, causing plant downtime and requiring later costly equipment replacement.
But what is a cooling tower water treatment system? How does it work? This article covers the following basics.
What is a cooling tower water treatment system?
A cooling tower water treatment system is a set of technologies that removes harmful contaminants from cooling tower water, loop water or blow down water. The specific configuration of the system depends on several factors, including:
1: Type of cooling tower used: (open loop, single pass, or closed loop)
2: Water quality of water supply
3: Manufacturer recommended quality requirements for cooling towers and equipment
4: Chemistry/composition of circuit water
5: Official discharge requirements
6: Whether the blow down is processed for reuse in the cooling tower
7: Types of heat exchangers
8: Cycle of concentration
What is included in a simple cooling tower water treatment system?
As mentioned above, the exact components of a cooling tower water treatment system depends on the water quality of the water supply and the chemical properties of the circuit water related to the water quality required for the particular cooling tower and related equipment (manufacturer's recommendation).
However, in general, a basic cooling tower water treatment system typically includes:
· Filtration and/or ultrafiltration
· Ion exchange / softening
· Reverse Osmosis
· Chemical feed
· Automatic monitoring
Depending on the pollutants present in the water, any combination of these treatments may be optimal for the facility and may constitute a treatment system, so consult a water treatment expert and be appropriate for your particular tower.
What does the cooling tower water treatment system usually control?
The cooling tower water treatment system can be configured with the technology required to control the level of
-Alkalinity: Determining the potential of the calcium carbonate scale.
-Chloride: Can corrode metals. Different levels are acceptable depending on the material and equipment of the cooling tower.
-Hardness: Contributes to scaling of cooling towers and heat exchangers.
-Iron: When combined with phosphate, iron can contaminate equipment.
-Organic matter: Promotes the growth of microorganisms and can cause fouling, corrosion and other system problems.
-Silica: Known to cause hard scale deposits.
-Sulphate: Like chloride, it can be very corrosive to metals.
-Totally Dissolved Solids (TDS): Contributes to scale, foaming, and/or corrosion.
-Total Suspended Solids (TSS): Scales, biofilms, and/or undissolved contaminants that can cause corrosion.
How does cooling tower water treatment systems work?
The specific treatment process depends on the tower requirements and the quality/chemical properties of the water supply and circulating water, but a typical cooling tower water treatment system involves the following steps:
Cooling tower make-up water inlet
The make-up water, or water that replaces the effluent and evaporation and leakage from the cooling tower, is first taken from that source. This can be raw water, tap water, urban treated wastewater, on-site wastewater recycling, well water, or other surface water sources.
Depending on the quality of this water, treatment here may or may not be necessary. If a water treatment system is required in this part of the water treatment of the cooling tower, it is usually a technique to remove hardness and silica or to stabilize and adjust the pH. At this point of the process, proper treatment optimizes the tower's evaporation cycle and minimizes the rate of water leakage to the drain beyond what can be achieved with chemicals alone.
Filtration, ultrafiltration and Reverse Osmosis
The next step is generally to pass the cooling tower water through some form of filtration to remove suspended solids such as sediments, turbidity, and certain types of organic matter. Itoften makes sense to do this early in the process, as removing suspended solids upstream helps protect the membrane and ion exchange resin from fouling later in the pre-treatment process. Depending on the type of filtration used, suspended solids can be removed to less than 1 micron.
Ion exchange/water softening
If the source/make-up water has a high hardness, there may be a treatment to remove the hardness. You can also use a thermoplastic resin instead of lime. Since the resin is charged with sodium ions and the hardness increases, it is a strongly acidic cation exchange process that has a high affinity with calcium, magnesium, and iron, so it grabs the molecules and releases the sodium molecules into the water. The presence of these contaminants otherwise causes scale and rust.
Chemical additives
At this point of the process, the following chemicals are typically used:
Anti-corrosion agents (bicarbonates, etc.) to neutralize acids and protect metal components
Algae and biocides (such as bromine) to control the growth of microorganisms and biofilms
Scale inhibitor to prevent impurities from forming scale deposits (e.g., phosphoric acid)
Thorough treatment prior to this stage can reduce the amount of chemicals required to treat water at this point in the process. This is ideal given that many chemical treatments can be expensive.
Conclusion
Mobile towers are quite an addition to the waste water treatment equipment’s and it should be popularised for its benefits. Netsol can help you in customising them for your needs.Netsol offers sedimentation and filtration solutions for cooling tower applications around the world, offering everything from specialty equipment. We have the expertise to provide cost-effective and reliable custom solutions. We believe in saving water and utilizing wastewater for different agricultural or irrigational purposes.
Netsol Water is Greater Noida-based leading water & wastewater treatment plant manufacturer. We are industry's most demanding company based on client review and work quality. We are known as best commercial RO plant manufacturers, industrial RO plant manufacturer, sewage treatment plant manufacturer, Water Softener Plant Manufacturers and effluent treatment plant manufacturers. Apart from this 24x7 customer support is our USP. Call on +91-9650608473, or write us at enquiry@netsolwater.com for any support, inquiry or product-purchase related query.