In-line water conditioner offers fast payback
September 1st 2006

Chemical limescale treatment and manual scale removal for the process cooling of a nitric acid plant in Argentina have been eliminated since the installation of a specially made 16in Colloid-A-Tron in-line catalytic water conditioner from Fluid Dynamics.

The company believes it to be the world's largest physical water conditioner and payback is expected in less than two years.

Fabrica Militar Rio Tercero specialises in the production of a range of chemical products, including nitric acid, sulphuric acid, nitrate or ammonia and ammonium anhydride.

In its nitric acid plant, a large heat exchanger is supplied with chilled water from a cooling tower at an average flow rate of 1700m3/h. Within this circuit, scale was a significant problem. Algae too was an issue.

The Colloid-A-Tron unit requires no power, no maintenance and no chemical agents. Once it was installed, chemical scale treatment ceased so that the performance of the unit could be evaluated.

After several months, it was apparent no new limescale had formed, and existing scale was beginning to fall away. This led to a reduction in algae, so sodium hypochlorite dosing was reduced by 50%.

A year after installation, a second review showed that effective limescale control was being maintained, so it was no longer necessary to shut down the plant for manual descaling.

Reduced maintenance costs, combined with the elimination of chemical limescale treatment and a massive reduction in algae treatment have led FMRT to predict a payback of less than two years, not including the savings achieved through increased production and reduced downtime.