Cooling Tower Conditioning System

Industrial Water Innovations engineered a processing unit to address the specific problems inherent with cooling towers in industrial applications. Cooling towers accumulate large amounts of silt in the water basins and become a breeding ground for any number of bacteria and algae, including dangerous microorganisms such as those causing Legionnaire’s disease. Cooling towers also may require significant use of chemicals, requiring constant monitoring and maintenance to prevent system failure.

The design criteria was to design a system that would:

Not disrupt the main flow of water to the cooling tower.
Reduce the maintenance required not only on the cooling tower itself, but on components such as heat exchangers and chillers dependent on the system.
Extend the life of the cooling towers and maintain the basin free of debris and silt
Eliminate or greatly reduce the use of chemical biocides and prevent microbial growth.
Create a unit that would be autonomous and not require constant adjustments and monitoring.

The result is our Cooling Tower / Evaporative Condenser Water Conditioning System.

The system uses a parallel approach in which a pump circulates water from the basin without disrupting the main water flow to the tower and can be easily installed with minimal downtime for the cooling tower.

A stand-alone, self-contained water cleaning and conditioning system specifically designed to solve cooling tower water and heat exchanger operational problems. It improves their efficiency, while at the same time, extends their life. It is comprised of several proprietary components, working together to render optimum results with a substantial reduction or completely eliminating biocide chemicals and anti scalant.

A single system is typically sized to treat 10% of a cooling tower chilled main flow. We have two standard sizes, a small conditioning system for towers with chilled flow under 350 GPM and a large system for cooling towers up to 700GPM. If required, the system can be installed in tandem for larger installations.

The entire system is on a light 4’x4’ structure that can be easily moved by pallet jack or forklift and can be reconfigured to a linear configuration of 2’x8’ for narrow spaces.

The system’s components include:

Scale prevention without chemicals:

This proprietary component provides a unique combination of two technologies

for the treatment and conditioning of the subject water.

This component inhibits scaling by causing compounds to remain in suspension

allowing them to pass harmlessly out of the system, which not only inhibits

scale formation, but pre-existing scale dissolves and will exit the system over time.

It also inhibits the growth of algae and reduces organic fouling.

This catalytic process requires no power and utilizes non-sacrificial components

(life of over 10 years).

The effects of this catalytic process have a lasting effect that dissolves existing

calcium deposits by softening them.

Disinfection without chemicals:

The system relies on the highest efficiency ultraviolet (UV) system in the market. As a vital component for the control of bio organisms in cooling towers, this is proven to be one of the most cost-effective and efficient methods of reducing bio-films in cooling tower water and is an EPA approved technology for the disinfection of drinking water and wastewater. It works instantaneously against all water-borne microorganisms, including bacteria, viruses, molds, spores and protozoa – including those resistant to chlorine. It is also very effective in the removal of various species of Legionella bacteria (the cause of Legionnaire’s disease in humans) which are commonly associated with cooling towers and must be controlled by law. This stage is microprocessor controlled, extremely compact and operationally efficient and will inactivate 99.99% of the microorganisms (depending on the turbidity) passing through the system.

Filtration:

This self-cleaning industrial filter designed for these applications

which coupled with the other system components, has been optimized

for the water make up of cooling towers and effectively keeps the

basin free of debris and silt. It is also controlled by the microprocessor

to monitor the differential pressure and control the backwash frequency

and cycle.

The filter does not use traditional elements, canisters, bags or other

traditional media. Instead, the mesh discs are cleaned by the action

of the backflush cycle and does not require maintenance.

Computer controls:

Control of the operating parameters of the conditioning system are tuned

for optimum performance on cooling tower and plate heat exchanger applications,

designed to maximize water and chemical savings.

Evaporation control:

A variable fan control, which responds to demand of chilled water by the process in which it is used, can achieve 50% or more in electrical savings and drastically reduce evaporation. This aids in keeping the fill and basin free of debris scrubbed from the atmosphere by action of a strong draft. The automatic control maintains the fan speed based on ambient and use conditions. This also reduces the quantity of make-up water for the tower and extends the life of the System.