Keeping your cooling towers and chillers clean with less chemicals

By; Lee R. Pinkson

Sustainable Efficiency Specialist - Energy and Water 

Cooling towers suffer from scale build up caused by high levels of dissolved solids due to evaporation and long term cycling of water. Minerals can't evaporate, so when a new cycle of water is introduced, scale builds up intensifies. This type of hard compounded scale insulates the heat exchanging surfaces creating a loss in the heat transmission coefficient. Scale build-up is also expensive to remove. This is usually accomplished by using aggressive chemicals that shorten the life of equipment and create a material handling hazard concern within the facility.

Vulcan reduces the amount of scale deposits and required maintenance intervals, offering cooling tower users a permanent solution to on-going maintenance, repairs and replacements. Vulcan treats water with electronic impulses that take away the building up power of scale, keeping minerals crystals into solution until they are flushed away as a fine powder.

Typically, extreme high hardness degrees are present in cooling tower water. Vulcan helps lengthening the service life of water cycles by allowing water to be efficiently used at conductivity levels above 5000 micro-Siemens. Vulcan has successfully treated cases with water hardness over 1000 ppm (59 gpg). The harder the water the more obvious the results. By minimizing or eliminating the need for chemicals or salts, bleed water is no longer toxic, saving also on the water treatment plant side. 

Vulcan significantly reduces biological formation on cooling towers by minimizing calcium deposits that are breeding ground for bacterial growth. This saves by diminishing the amount of disinfecting chemicals needed to treat the water. Deposits if any will be minimal and they will be easily removed by pressure water.

Vulcan was installed at the Florida State University College of Engineering cooling tower system and a case study was conducted in 2013.

The maintenance for these cooling towers previously involved continuous injection of descaling chemical cleansers. The use of these cleansers was discontinued over a year prior to the installation of the Vulcan. In that time, the cooling tower flutes became encrusted with both scale and bio-film. Throughout the time period described below, there were no cleaning procedures in place with these cooling towers besides the treatment provided by the Vulcan.

The objectives were to prevent scale buildup on the cooling towers, remove the existing scale, eliminate the need for chemicals or time-consuming cleaning procedures, and to reduce energy costs.

The following Data and Observations of the Vulcan effects on the FSU Cooling Towers were registered.

Vulcan does not change the water quality beyond its effect to prevent scale buildup. As illustrated below, the pH, conductivity, dissolved oxygen level, and turbidity remained relatively constant during observation from before the installation to over a month after. Temperature is included, because of its affect on the other measurements and seems to correlate with the slight fluctuations observed.

Between  the  time  of  the  installation  on  July  16th  and examination on August 1st, the green biofilm had begun to recede and gradually disappear. The next visit was about 3 weeks after the installation, on August 9th. At that point, the green biofi lm had been further reduced and the scale deposits had begun to separate from the flutes in coin-sized flakes.

By  August  20th,  about  a  month  after  installation,  the green  biofilm  had  almost  completely  disappeared from the surfaces in contact with the Vulcan-treated water. The flakes of scale previously observed had fallen off in most places. The cooling tower flute surface area covered with scale deposits had been decreased by over 60%. We are very optimistic about continued improvement with this application. In addition to these observations, water quality measurements were also obtained from each cooling tower and are summarized in the following charts.

Vulcan treatment is proven to be effective treating chillers as evidenced by the picture below.

Conclusion:

After FSU installed Vulcan they were able to stop all chemically based cooling tower treatment. Almost no scale buildup was observed. Minimal amounts of scale that were found on the cooling tower surfaces are easily removed with the wipe of a finger or simple pressure water wash-off. The results show Vulcan's effectiveness to enhance sustainability and reliability on industrial facilities by promoting peak heat transfer efficiency, simplifying maintenance, and saving on water treatment chemicals. Vulcan keeps your system clean. 

Vulcan Size Chart by Pipe Diameter and Water Flow

German quality and performance trusted by facility managers worldwide.

Contact TMS today for the best deals in the USA.

To order Vulcan call 512-551-0923 / 407-342-3655 or Email: sales@techno-ms.com