Managing Scale & Corrosion in Cooling Towers

Michael Groh, talking about controlling the scale and corrosion in cooling towers in the Seattle area, at a seminar put on in 2010 at the EMP by Seattle Public Utilities and the Saving Water Partnership.
Scale prohibiting - When calcium and carbonates come together you can get scale and you need treatment chemicals, often phosphonates which prohibit the formation of the scale crystals, and the crystals can’t form a deposit. Put in corrosion coupon rack to measure corrosion of water. Pull coupons out every 90 days to see if seeing much corrosion. And to make sure it is under the limits for different types of metals. And this is especially important for the chiller system which can be very expensive to replace if you do exceed the limits and cause major damage. Should test water to see what particles you have of different sizes and that will tell you what type of filtration system makes the most sense for your area and tower. 90% of systems he looked at did not have the right chemical treatment.