Cooling Water Filtration

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Cooling water filtration an essential step in your maintenance program

Cooling systems are used in almost every industry, they are an effective way to enable process heat removal for example in (petro) chemical plants, food and beverage production or to cool the circulating water in air-conditioning units. Data centers for example require a reliable cooling system to prevent the computers from overheating. Filtration is often overlooked in the maintenance program, but water treatment is an important and critical step and provides many benefits.

Requirements of the customer

  • Decrease maintenance on equipment
  • Improve efficiency of the cooling system
  • Extend the life of the cooling fluid /water (less replenishment required)
  • Minimize manual cleaning
  • Continuous process
  • Protection of your equipment
  • Maximize chemical program effectiveness

     

Solution

  • Full-flow and side stream filter system

Dutch Filtration will give you:

  • The knowledge to improve your processes

  • Save costs on cleaning the systems

  • Increase the life span of the cooling system

  • Standard and custom build filter equipment

  • Turn Key filtration projects

  • In house design and production

  • (Onsite) testing to obtain process data

  • Systems with low maintenance

  • Rental system for temporary need for filtration

Products for cooling water filtration

FILTER HOUSINGS

AUTOMATIC SELF CLEANING SCREEN FILTER

HYDROCYCLONE

HIGH FLOW FILTER CARTRDIGES

PLEATED FILTER CARTRIDGES

FILTER BAGS

STRING WOUND

MELTBLOWN/

SPUNBONDED

We also provide the following products and services

  • Media filters
  • Strainers
  • Training and Start-up
  • Spare parts
  • Rentals

Cooling Water Filtration

Filtration is often overlooked in the maintenance equation of Cooling systems, it is an important adjunct to the water treatment program.

 

Sources of contaminants in cooling tower water

The water in a (open) cooling tower constantly scrubs airborne contaminants (floaters) from the environment, such as leaves, pollen, dust and construction debris. These contaminants can create a very dirty, warm and bio-nutrient rich environment within the cooling tower, which is an ideal favorable place for micro-organisms, bacteria’s, algae and parasites. Fouling will cause reduction in heat / cold transfer efficiency levels and increased operating and maintenance costs. Some of these contaminants even effect the pH what can cause corrosion or increase the growth of scaling. It can also cause serious health problems if bacteria’s or even viruses stay in these colling water systems.

Hard water will  cause problems because of the dissolved compounds of magnesium, calcium and other elements. Over a longer period of time these compounds will stick to different surfaces and form a hardened layer; also known as scaling. This layer continues to grow and will eventually reduce the heat transfer efficiency of the heat exchangers.

Treating the water with only chemicals is not sufficient enough. Fungi and bacteria can resist these treatments because they are hidden under a layer of dirt which absorbs the chemicals. A sufficient filtration system eliminates the suspended solids and other contaminations, permitting your treatment chemicals to appropriately address bacterial threats. Less chemicals are needed because there are less contaminants, suspended solids after filtration.

Full-flow or side stream filtration

There are two methods of filtration, Full-flow filtration and side stream filtration. A full-flow filtration system filters 100% of the total fluid or water flow. A side stream filtration system filters approximately 10 to 20% of the fluid flow. In a heating or cooling systems fluid flow rates can vary from a few gallons/liters till hundreds of gallons/liters a minute.

In systems with a very high flow rate a full flow filtration system may not be the best solution because:

  • Finer filtration will decrease flow rates so filtration is limited in particle size
  • The more contaminants the filter accumulates, the higher the pressure differential, this will cause pressure loss and will result in a high energy consumption
  • If the filter clogs it can endanger the process and it needs to be stopped
  • If the filter reaches his capacity it can cause heat loss

For continuously operating systems with high flows a full-flow system is not the best solution. But if the heating system can be shut down for some time the filter can be cleaned to avoid these issues.
Side stream filter systems continually extracts parts of the total water volume of the system. To filter the total fluid stream you need several circulation cycles. To minimize the amount of suspended solids that settles into sludge you need an agitation system.

Applications:

  • Water cooled air conditioning systems
  • Electrical power generation plant
  • Water cooled air compressors
  • Plastic Injection & blow moulding machine
  • Protection of heat exchanger in datacenters
  • Protection of spray nozzles in paper industry
  • Cooling machines and process in food and beverage production
  • Protection of booster pumps
  • Scale removal in the metallurgical industry
  • Filtration of surface water intake (mussels and mussel larvae)

Experience & Innovation

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