Cooling towers are vital in a large range of applications, from air conditioning in residential or commercial buildings to large scale cooling in heavy industry and power generation. Cooling towers suffer from a number of problems which HydroFLOW can address. A major issue is limescale on the heat exchangers, which reduces cooling efficiency and requires ongoing maintenance expenses. Additionally, there can be problems in the tower itself, either due to limescale again, or due to bacterial or algae growth.
Treatment with HydroFLOW can prevent hard scale encrustation in the heat exchanger and on the tower, and reduce the biofouling. This allows operation with lower (or zero) chemical treatment and higher cycles of concentration, reducing the money spend on sewage and drain down as well as chemical treatment.
The cooling tower shown below, on the RB1 building in Rio de Janerio, Brazil, shows an example of the possible benefits of Hydroflow. With HydroFLOW protecting against scaling on the heat exchanger and the tower, the tower could increase the cycles of concentration from 4 to 25 cycles, with a corresponding decrease in make-up water and the associated water and sewerage charges. The thermal efficiency was also maintained at a high level – before protection with HydroFLOW, the tower required four recirculation pumps during the summer months to reach the required cooling level. After treatment, the tower could be run with only three pumps, giving a 25% decrease in the associated costs.