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Cooling System Water Treatment

Feedwater are experts in Cooling Water Treatment and, as founder members of the Legionella Control Association, you can have be confident we can keep your cooling system running safely and efficiently.
We save our customers £ millions in operating costs every year with advanced products & services to prevent scale, corrosion and biological fouling

Cooling Water Treatment Consultancy, Services & Products

Without effective cooling water treatment, a cooling water system can suffer from scale formation, corrosion and fouling and may become a breeding ground for harmful bacteria such as those which cause Legionnaires’ Disease. This reduces efficiency, shortens plant life and makes your operation unreliable and unsafe. Poor control can not only put your cooling process at risk but can also squander £1,000s in wasted energy, chemicals and water charges.

Legionella Control Experts

We’ve been keeping cooling water systems running safely for over 45 years and were founder members of the Legionella Control Association. We are the only water treatment company that has its own in-house UKAS accredited Microbiological Laboratory specialising in Legionella water analysis. Won’t find a better partner to help you with your L8 compliance.

Pre-treatment & Dosing Equipment

As well as great chemicals we make and install pre-treatment equipment like water softeners and chemical dosage and control systems. Our equipment service team can keep your water treatment equipment running efficiently to ensure your cooling system is always protected.

Cleaning & Disinfection Services

Our highly trained in-house cleaning and disinfection teams will keep your cooling systems clean and running safely & efficiently. Our Activ-Ox foam cleaning process enables cooling tower packing to be cleaned in-situ – saving time & money, and our photographic condition reports will satisfy the most demanding of HSE inspectors.

High Performance Chemicals

The extensive Feedwater range of cooling water chemicals include corrosion & scale inhibitors, biocides and dispersants. Our treatment programme will matched against your specific needs to provide cost-effective protection of your system to ensure it operates efficiently and safely.

Feedsafe Drum-less Chemical Delivery

Feedsafe is our drum-less chemical delivery service. Chemical is pumped across from our lorry into a bunded dosage tank using special hoses fitted with camlock fittings to prevent chemical spillage. This avoids the need for manual handling, the risk of chemical exposure and the cost and problem of waste drum disposal.

21st Century Water Treatment

Our experienced water treatment consultants operate across the UK and Ireland and use our industry-leading electronic reporting system which provides trend graphs, traffic light warnings, automatic calculations and cost-saving recommendations to provide exceptional service.
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Water Testing Laboratory

Online Ordering Available

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Cooling Water Chemicals

Easy Online Ordering

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Electronic Cooling Service Reports

Feedwater have developed an industry leading electronic service report for use by our consultants in the field to offer our clients services impossible with old school carbon paper reports.

> Always clear & legible!
> Traffic light coloured warnings
> Trend graphs
> Unique Legionella and fouling risk predictor "heat map"
> Energy and water efficiency calculators
> Uploaded to your Customer Portal - Audit-Friendly
And more …

Contact us to find out more

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Cooling Water Treatment Basics

The purpose of a cooling water treatment programme is essentially 3 fold: –

  • To protect the system against damaging corrosion.
  • To control scale formation and fouling which will impair cooling efficiency.
  • To control the growth of harmful microbes like Legionella bacteria.

These problems are interrelated and it is therefore essential that the treatment programme tackles all of them.

For information and advice read more below

Concentration Factor & Bleed-off Control

An evaporative cooling system works by transferring heat from the process being cooled to the recirculating cooling water at a heat exchanger and then rejecting that heat at the cooling tower by evaporating a small proportion of the water. Evaporating just 1.8% of the recirculating flow achieves a temperature reduction of 100C. Since water is evaporated as pure H2O the dissolved minerals (TDS) in the remaining cooling water become more concentrated. Some increase in the concentration factor is often beneficial since it tends to makes the cooling water less corrosive but if it this allowed to go unchecked it can lead to scale formation and fouling. It is therefore often necessary to control the concentration factor by bleeding-off or blowing down a proportion of the cooling water and replacing it with less concentrated make-up water. This is best done using a conductivity controlled bleed-off system which automatically controls the concentration factor at the desired conductivity.

pdf downloadGeneral Coolplex Leaflet or Telemetric Coolplex System.

Contact us using the form below for cost-effective bleed-off control equipment.

Coolguard Abattoir Case Study
Bromine in AHU Case Study

Dosing and Control Equipment

The best cooling water treatment programme in the world will be rendered ineffective if the concentration factor and the concentration of inhibitors and biocides cannot be accurately controlled. A dosing and control system should therefore incorporate:

  • An automatic bleed-off control system (preferably conductivity controlled)
  • Automatic inhibitor dosing (preferably water meter controlled based on the volume of make-up water)
  • Automatic biocide dosing (either timer controlled for non-oxidising biocides or preferably redox controlled for oxidising biocides like bromine)

We design and build a comprehensive range of cooling water dosing and control systems so contact us today.

Cooling System Legionella Control

In light of the recent Edinburgh Legionella outbreak, the HSE is drawing attention the risks and good practice concerning cooling towers and evaporative condensers in cooling water treatment. The whole safety bulletin can be found here: HSE Cooling Tower Safety Bulletin – This will open in a new page.

The essential elements of good treatment programme are the same as those required for cooling tower legionella control – scale and corrosion control, effective microbial control and maintaining system cleanliness. In the UK, because Legionnaires ‘ disease is potentially fatal, owners and operators of cooling systems are required to notify them to the local authority and should adhere to the HSE Approved Code of Practice for cooling tower legionella control, ACoP L8. This means that you should:

  • Appoint a responsible person to manage the system
  • Carry out a formal legionella risk assessment
  • Prepare a scheme of precautions and control measures to control the risk
  • Implement and manage these control measures and monitor to ensure that they are working
  • Keep comprehensive records because you may need to prove that you are meeting these requirements.

In practical terms

What this means is, that in addition to having an effective chemical treatment programme controlled by reliable dosing control equipment, you will need written procedures covering the safe start-up, shut-down, operation and maintenance of the system. You will also need to monitor the cooling water regularly to ensure chemical and microbial control and carry-out quarterly tests specifically for legionella bacteria.

The cooling system will also need to be cleaned and disinfected on a regular basis (usually at least twice a year). All this can seem quite daunting but Feedwater have years of experience in cooling water legionella control so contact us today because we can help you.

In need of a new Legionella Risk Assessment? Click the link to find out more.

Cooling Water Corrosion Control

Corrosion may be the result from a number of different mechanisms such as general oxygen driven attack, galvanic corrosion cells caused by dissimilar metals, chloride attack of stainless steel and microbially induced or influenced corrosion (MIC). As a general rule the more scale forming the less corrosive water tends to be to steel and the LSI and RSI indices can be used to predict this. This means that provided scale formation can be effectively inhibited it is beneficial to operate a cooling system at an elevated concentration factor therefore close control of the cycles of concentration is critical to cooling water corrosion control. In effect you are making the water chemistry work for you rather than having to fight against it. It is also important to control the microbial activity and physical fouling since both can be the cause of severe localised corrosion. Once these basics have been dealt with you need a good corrosion inhibitor which is matched to the cooling water chemistry and system metallurgy, and to control its dosage effectively.

Contact us to protect your cooling system from corrosion problems.

Cooling Tower Scale Control

Scale or lime-scale is a hard, rock-like deposit of calcium or magnesium salts that forms in heat exchangers and cooling tower packing as a result of heat and increased concentration factor. Scale formation impairs heat transfer, interferes with flow and cooling, and can be a breeding ground for legionella bacteria. The scaling tendency of a water supply will depend on the hardness of the water but if not adequately treated even relatively soft waters can become highly scaling when concentrated by evaporation. Cooling water scale control is achieved by either:

  • Removing the hardness from the make-up water using a water softener
  • Adding a scale inhibitor chemical which extends the solubility of the hardness salts and thus preventing scale formation
  • Dosing sulphuric acid to lower the pH and alkalinity and reduce the scaling potential (this technique is generally restricted to large industrial systems)
  • Limiting the system concentration factor to a range within which the hardness salts can remain soluble

The scaling tendency of water can be predicted by calculating the Langelier Saturation Index (LSI) or Ryznar Stability Index (RSI) and often a combination of these control techniques is employed to prevent scale formation whilst not causing problems of corrosion.

Contact us to resolve your cooling water scale problems. Feedwater offer a number of pre-treatment solutions for cooling systems including Cooling Tower Water Softeners.

Cooling Tower Microbiological Control

An evaporative cooling system is often an ideal growth environment for a whole range of microbes such as bacteria, algae, fungi and protozoa which can lead to problems such as:

  • Microbial slimes which interfere with heat transfer
  • Highly localised microbial induced corrosion
  • Reduced effectiveness of corrosion inhibitors
  • Fouling caused by suspended solids being trapped in the microbial slimes
  • Reduced flow and poor water distribution within the cooling tower

Effective cooling water microbiological control is not only essential to the efficient operation of a system but also necessary to control the growth of legionella bacteria and the risk of Legionnaires disease. In order to maintain microbial control effective biocides need to be added on a regular basis and the results monitored using dip-slides and periodic laboratory analysis.

Contact us to help you prevent microbial problems in cooling system and discuss our range of cooling water treatment chemicals.

Fouling Control

Controlling scaling, corrosion and microbial growth will reduce problems of fouling but a cooling system may still become fouled with sediment in the incoming water supply (particularly if it isn’t mains water) and airborne dust and debris washed out of the atmosphere by the cooling tower. In some instances fouling may also be the direct result of process contamination. Deposits tend to settle in low-velocity areas and can cause reduced flow, blockages, impaired heat transfer, under deposit corrosion and encourage microbial growth including legionella. If the incoming water contains a lot of suspended solids then pre-filtration or clarification may be advisable. To keep the suspended solids mobile in the recirculating water the chemical programme should always incorporate a polymer dispersant and if the solids level is high then the incorporation of a side stream filtration system in a of the cooling circuit will help to keep the system clean. Since an evaporative cooling system is in effect an air scrubber so some build-up of deposits with time is inevitable so in addition to these on-going control measures the system should be taken off-line periodically for disinfection and the physical cleaning.

Contact us to help you keep your cooling system free from fouling.

Cooling System Chemicals

Feedwater is a manufacturer and supplier of a range of high-quality cooling tower treatment chemicals for UK and export.

If not treated correctly, a cooling system can rapidly become choked with scale and corrosion products and become a breeding ground for all manner of problematic microbes. The cooling tower itself can become fouled with microbial slime, algal growths and if incorrectly treated can be the cause of Legionnaires’ disease.

Problems are invariably inter-related and a comprehensive treatment programme is required which will involve corrosion inhibitors, scale inhibitors, polymer dispersant and micro biocides.

Our range of Cooling Water Chemicals are available to see by clicking the link, additionally, a selection of our popular chemicals are also available to order online.

Export and Toll Blend

Feedwater also has agreements with distributors around the world and is actively seeking new partners to bring Feedwater products into new markets, if you feel this is you please contact us. As well as this Feedwater provides toll blend services to service providers who require the partnership of a manufacturer to supply speciality chemicals with their name on.

Consultancy

Our consultants work across the UK visiting hundreds of industrial sites a week. We believe that any treatment plan is only as good as the service which comes with it which is why our expertly trained consultation team perform weekly, monthly or quarterly visits for some of the biggest names in the UK as well as the small business operator who make up the backbone of the UK economy. Both small and large businesses have a need to protect their critical assets from damage and ensure their plant operates safely and efficiently.

How can we help you?

We have saved our customers millions of pounds in operating costs per year, visit our cost control page to find out more. We can also help you to ensure you are operating safely and legally compliant.

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