"Brine Maker" or "Brine Saturator" Design Guide

[DeltaCascade]

Hello:

After searching high and low, it is surprising to find little information on Brine Saturator Tank design for industrial duty brine-production for ion-exchange (sodium zeolite) water softener regeneration. Can anyone contribite a detailed design guide or technical reference? Many thanks.

Clarifications:

Estimation of tank size for a specified brine making capacity can of course be provided by vendors, but information is desired prior to engaging a vendor, and in sanity-check of vendor proposals. Also, if we want to build a Brine Saturator Sump, which likely would not involve a vendor.

Brine makers typically will hold salt pellet or rock salt inventory, such as 1.5 truck loads or more. Then, fresh make-up water enters the brine maker from the top, gets denser as it becomes saturated with brine (approx 26wt% NaCl), and is drawn-off the bottom of the tank for use in ion-exchange ("sodium zeolite") water softener regeneration. This is the popular downflow brine maker configuration. Question is brine making capacity (m3/h 26wt% NaCl brine) as function of tank diameter, water depth, solid salt depth, temperature, etc.

There are also details of tank underdrain design that are of interest.

And of course, sumps may be used instead of tanks, avoiding pneumatic conveying of salt to tank, as it can just be dumped from truck, into sump.

Cheers and Thanks,
DeltaCascade

 

[GarySCWSVI]

Check out this web site:

http://www.designtanks.com/UserFiles/File/Brinemaker.pdf

Gary Schreiber, CWS VI
The Purolite Co.

 

[bimr]

Here is another one:

http://www.sciencofast.com/products/brinemaker/about-brinemaker.html

 

[DeltaCascade]

Thank you, very much. Those where the two best references found, too. Missing, I tought, was minimum salt depth for the capacities given, yet, after looking again, 5 ft appears to be the recommended minimum (eg: 15 tonne for granulated salt in a 10' diameter tank). I guess we could assume ambient temperature (15C or so). So, from there we can calculate minimum and maximum salt storage capacity ... No wonder these tanks are fairly tall.
Together, the references give a good rough design guide, afterall.

And, for safety vent sizing on pneumatically loaded tanks, one may specify 15 psig max air pressure for pneumatic loading from truck (according to transport firms contacted), for an estimated tank design pressure of about 1 psig, for example, and go from there.

Thank you fellow tipsters, for tuning me in. I hope to be able to return the favour.


Regards,
DeltaCascade