International Potable Water Chemical Manufacture benefits from Seaco Water Treatment Solution

Executive Summary A major drinking water chemical manufacture was dealing with repetitive (~every 8-10 days) shut-downs due to failure of heat exchangers, resulting in the need to soak exchanger plates in 35% HCl to remove deposits and associated costs. This had gone on for so long that the producer had adapted a production schedule to address the fouling and forced a smaller supplemental sister plant to change production in order to meet customer demand. Seaco Technologies developed a treatment program to address the above process issues resulting in an increase in annual production by 38% - allowed the smaller plant to return to normal process operations- expand the manufacturer’s customer-base.

CHALLENGES Facility water supply was extremely scale forming. The customer was spending $2,800/month to reduce hardness in the make-up water with a zeolite softener, with little to no success due to operational issues within the softener’s regeneration cycle. Facility management was investigating a costly tie-in to city water as an alternative solution, when Seaco Technologies was contacted to evaluate chemical water treatment options. In addition to the softener system failures the application presented other challenges: • The manufacturing facility is a Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD) operation – any treatment and all cooling water would end up in their finished product. • The finished product was an NSF certified potable water flocculant and any chemical treatment utilized could not void this certification. • Cooling tower cycles had to be maximized; the facility could not afford blow-down rates to exceed a 15% of the facility production rate, as all blow-down was used in the production process.

The Seaco Solution Seaco specifically developed a treatment program coupled with a tightly managed biological control plan to meet the customer requirements, while eliminating the use of the zeolite softeners. During the implementation phase Seaco was present on site with our mobile laboratory unit, conducting multi-week analysis and, providing real-time data to facility management. This opportunity was also used to provide training to operations staff to ensure continual success going forward.

RESULTS and Future Plans The treatment program has been in operation for 5+ years, providing the customer year-over-year protection against fouling in their process water cooling system. The heat exchangers are now subject to standard annual preventative maintenance. Water consumption keep meeting the customer’s requirements. Due to increased production efficiencies, Seaco was able to maximize cycles of the cooling tower, as increased facility throughput allowed for better blending ratios above 15%.