silica and hardness concentration at the inlet of ion exchange unit.

[jzuniga]

Can any one tell of what would be the preferred way to pretreat a well water with 80 ppm silica and 100 ppm total hardness before feeding it to an ion exchange unit. I have thought of first softening the well water with by hot-lime softening to take it down to 40 mmp total hardess and 30 ppm silica followed by filtration before entering it to the ion exchange units. Is it convenient to do it as stated or ist it preferred to just filter de well water and feed it directly to the ion exchange resins?. What is the most convenient silica concentration at the entrance of the ion exchange units?
thanks for your help

 

[bimr]

The recommendation will depend on what else is in the water, which you have not stated.

Lime softening is probably the best recommendation. Note that it is also common to use RO prior to the demineralizer.

It may be possible to skip the lime softening step and just use RO/DI as per the linked paper. It depends on what is present in your water analysis.

http://www.gewater.com/pdf/Technical Papers_Cust/Americas/English/TP1058EN.pdf