Non Phosphorous Cooling Water treament

[MedicineEng]

Hi All:

In our efforts to improve the sustainability of our operations I've been looking in to our cooling water chemical treatment.
We have an usual phosphate base corrosion and scale inhibitor and I asked our chemical provider, which is one of the leading companies in the world on this field, to propose us a non phosphate base cooling water treatment.

This week they came with a proposal to replace our current cooling water treatment by a non-P one, but they said that they need to had to add zinc as well.
This left me a little worried if we were not trading one pollutant by another eventually worse.

Any thoughts or experience on this issue?

Thanks.

 

[lukaiENG]

There are a number of non-chemical water treatment systems out there which purport to either eliminate chemicals or reduce their quantities.
One interesting one I have seen lately is a moss based system which both absorbs ions and breaks down existing scale (manufacturer claims, not mine). You can use it alongside existing chemical systems initially to get your comfort level and then phase them out as your confidence grows.
Full disclosure, I have seen this installed, it have not included in any designs/installations yet.

 

[GT-EGR]

I've heard this system considered many times - but haven't actually seen one installed or talked about it with a building operator after installation.

Copied below is the wikipedia description of the Dolphin system, which I'm fairly certain doesn't use any chemicals.

Dolphin WaterCare
Dolphin WaterCare Logo.jpg
Product type Pulse Powered Non-Chemical Water Treatment[1]
Registered as a trademark in United States, various dates[2]
Website Dolphin WaterCare
Dolphin WaterCare is a brand of environmentally responsible[3] pulsed-power water treatment technology patented by Clearwater Systems Corporation.[4] The system is designed to control scale, corrosion and biological activity in cooling towers without the use of chemicals, chemical tanks or pumps.[5] The brand is used in various industries to treat water from cooling towers, chilling systems, heat exchangers, direct evaporative coolers, and hot water systems.[6]

 

[lukaiENG]

The Dolphin system is chemical-less as well. I have heard mixed anecdotal feedback about this system as well. I'm not going to go into any detail on this because I don't want to be seen to be advocating for or against any particular product based on hearsay.
What I would say is if you are interested in going down a chemical-less path then you may find that main challenge you will face is contractual. Your existing provider will no doubt bash all options other than what they offer (if any) as snake oil and you may have issues with being able to do any sort of controlled trial without potentially changing vendor or signing a waiver regarding the water quality during the trial period. This has been the main barrier I have faced when looking into these alternate systems so far. One of the main things I have learned is to take whatever the water treatment companies are saying with a grain of salt because they are completely biased.