Cooling a scientific process needs to have the purest form of water. Therefore, water quality becomes an uncompromisable factor in determining the efficiency of cooling. Emphor DLAS, a leading distributor of laboratory equipment in UAE explains.

Water quality of the cooling system is something of prime importance when it comes to usage in a technical system. With Filtration, we can regain the lost cooling efficiency of water. Process cooling engineers are constantly striving for improved efficiencies for better scientific results. Most process cooling systems consume approximately 60 per cent of a building’s energy, and seemingly modest gains in efficiency can yield both significant and measurable effects. Process system designers typically focus on optimizing elements of the actual cooling system. Optimizations have caused notable and important gains in efficiency among the industry.

Water’s purity is questioned mostly by the suspended solids. Many have the misconception that water’s quality doesn’t get much affected once they are subjected to the system, which is actually wrong. What are the substances that float in the water? These suspended solids can wreak havoc on a process cooling system and drastically reduce efficiencies.

1. Dust
Chemical processes can purify water before they are passed on to the cooling system. Cooling towers have gaps and vents that allow air and dust into the water stream which can affect the quality of the water. A cooling system with 1300 cooling capacity can accumulate 147 .lbs dust in 90 days run. Adding to this, calcium carbonate causes additional problems when water meets metal pipes. Over time this collection of dust and other fine particles in cooling systems form a layer of scale. This scale is not only unpleasant and expensive to resolve.

2. Biofilm
Biofilms are composed of bacteria, proteins which get accumulated with scales. The scales become breeding beds for many dangerous organisms. Film scales can cause efficiency problems in scale collection. A cooling system with a substantial accumulation of biofilm can lose up to 30 per cent of its operating efficiency.

3. Corroded metal particles
Biofilm causes corrosion mainly caused by water temperatures, water velocity, residence time and metallurgy. Corrosion causes a short life span for the machinery. Corrosive particles form scales and get deposited in the water channel which can lead to further efficiency issues. These deposits can result in the fouling of equipment, which can be costly to repair.

Most suspended particles enter the water during the process and therefore the most effective solution for a removal for such particles is post-hoc. Suspended particles are mostly smaller than 5 µm in size and these are hardly caught in traditional filtration systems. Therefore, it is necessary to find a system that can either clump or filter particles.

Micro sand filtration helps to a large extent. The process combines cross-flow conditioner and micro sand filtration providing high filtration efficiency. This approach to filtration also results in less water needed for backwash, making it useful as a side-stream filtration solution for cooling system water.

The filtering system can be affected by the fouling of reverse-osmosis membranes. The reverse osmosis membrane can be made more sustainable by adding a proper pretreatment filter to make sure that the best efficiency rate is attained. The best available technology to determine the fouling potential of reverse-osmosis inlet water is by measuring the silt density index( SDI). SDI measurement must be taken prior to designing a RO pretreatment system. Water Analyzers are hence a must of every laboratory to measure and analyze the quality of water. Emphor DLAS offer water analyzers and please visit ww.emphordlas.com for more information.