Optimizing Industrial Cooling: Selecting the Right Cooling Tower

Efficient heat management is paramount in optimizing equipment performance, minimizing operational costs, and enhancing energy efficiency in industrial environments. When selecting a cooling tower, several critical factors—including cooling requirements, the material of the cooling tower, energy efficiency, and environmental impacts—must be considered to ensure optimal performance and cost-effectiveness.

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Understanding Your Cooling Needs

Determining the cooling requirements is the first step towards selecting the right cooling tower. Key factors to consider include the heat load from the industrial process or equipment, ambient temperature conditions, water flow rate, and desired temperature reduction. Accurately assessing these elements ensures the selected cooling tower can effectively manage the generated heat.

Selecting the Right Material

Cooling tower can vary significantly in terms of materials, each offering unique benefits and challenges. Your choice should align with your specific environmental conditions, efficiency needs, and maintenance capacity, ensuring it meets your application's unique requirements.

• Steel Galvanized Cooling Towers offer robustness and durability, with a protective coating to ward off corrosion. Ideal for challenging environments, they demand regular maintenance to uphold their structural integrity and cooling efficiency.
• Fiberglass Cooling Towers stand out for their resistance to chemical damage, rust, and corrosion, coupled with lightweight construction and maintenance ease. They are preferred for their longevity, cooling efficacy, and cost-effectiveness over time.

Key Selection Criteria

1. Sizing for Optimal Performance:
   Correct sizing and capacity are crucial. Factors like heat exchanger size, water flow rate, and heat dissipation needs must guide the selection process to avoid inefficiencies or excess energy use due to under or oversized cooling towers.
2. Prioritizing Energy Efficiency:
   Energy efficiency significantly influences operational costs. Features like variable-speed fans and energy recovery systems, and efficient water distribution systems can minimize energy consumption. Choosing an energy-efficient cooling tower can help lower operating costs and reduce environmental impact.
3. Water Quality and Treatment Compatibility:
   The performance and longevity of a cooling tower are closely tied to water quality. Opt for a tower designed for compatibility with necessary water treatment methods to prevent scaling, corrosion, and biological growth which can affect the efficiency and performance of the system.
4. Minimizing Environmental Impact:
   Evaluate potential environmental impacts of the industrial cooling towers, including water and chemical use and noise levels. Selecting environmentally conscious options helps reduce your facility's overall environmental footprint.
5. Maintenance and Upkeep:
   Consider the maintenance requirements of the cooling tower, including cleaning, inspection, and parts replacement. Choose an unit that is easy to maintain and has readily available replacement parts to minimize downtime and maintenance costs.
6. Analyzing Cost Implications:
   While initial cost is a significant factor, it should not be the sole determining factor in cooling tower selection. Consider both the initial investment and long-term operating and maintenance costs to determine the overall value proposition. Balancing upfront costs with performance, efficiency, and durability is crucial for making a cost-effective decision.

Selecting the right cooling tower for your industrial facility requires a comprehensive evaluation process that considers various factors and requirements. There is no one-size-fits-all solution, and the best choice depends on the specific needs of your facility. By carefully evaluating cooling requirements, type of cooling tower, size and capacity, water quality and treatment, energy efficiency, maintenance requirements, environmental impact, and cost, you can choose a cooling tower that optimally meets your industrial cooling needs.

Partnering for Success

In today's competitive landscape, choosing the right cooling system provider is crucial. Berg is committed to working with clients, enhancing efficiency, reliability, and sustainability in industrial processes. We offer customizable industrial chilling solutions, designed to address the unique challenges and requirements of each industrial process, ensuring maximum efficiency and performance.

Experience the Berg Difference

Leveraging over 50 years of industry experience, Berg stands as a leader in industrial cooling solutions. Our commitment to quality and innovation ensures our clients receive the most efficient and reliable cooling systems available.

In this blog post, we give a summary of what should be considered when choosing a filtration system for your cooling tower filtration requirements.

What You Will Learn:

• The importance of cooling tower filtration systems for protecting equipment and complying with environmental regulations.
• Different types of filtration methods: side stream, full stream, and make-up water filtration.
• Various filtration technologies including centrifugal separators, sand filters, automatic screen filters, and more.
• Key factors to consider when choosing a filtration system: location, flow rate, filtration degree, and costs.
• How Amiad’s filtration solutions address common challenges in cooling water systems.

Industrial manufacturing facilities typically require cooling equipment to cool down chillers, heat exchangers, products and other devices, and this equipment needs to be protected from contaminants found in the cooling water.

In addition, environmental regulations for protecting water sources require that manufacturers return the utilized cooling water to its source in a non-pollutant state.

Cooling tower filtration system is essential for safeguarding equipment and to abide by these regulations.

Here are some other valuable benefits of cooling tower filtration:

• Improved heat transfer rates in water cooling system for a longer period
• Reduced water consumption
• Improved chemical effectiveness
• Reduced chemical consumption
• Reduced maintenance and energy costs
• Increased equipment lifetime

What is Water Filtration for Cooling Towers?

The above-mentioned regulations require that cooling systems be chemically treated and monitored on a regular basis, specifically for corrosion, scaling, suspended solids and biological fouling.

Corrosion, scaling and biological fouling can be controlled by routine water treatment, but the suspended solids can be more challenging as they can reach the system in various ways, such as production contaminants, pipe corrosion and variations in the raw water composition. Airborne particles are also an issue and, in some cases, can lead to high dirt loads. If left untreated, suspended solids can cause poor energy transfer and obstructions and have an adverse effect on the efficiency of the chemical treatment. In severe cases, suspended solids may lead to expensive replacements, and production efficiency and productivity would be impacted if the system were to be shut down for repairs.

Filtration plays an important role in protecting cooling towers and is divided into 3 categories: side stream water filtration, full stream water filtration and make-up water filtration.

Side Stream Water Filtration:

A percentage (5-15%) of the recirculating cooling water volume flows through a water loop, reducing the overall load of solids. This loop then passes through a filtration system.

Full Stream Water Filtration:

A filtration unit is installed on the discharge side of the pump, after the cooling tower, and continuously filters all of the recirculating water in the system.

Make-up Water Filtration:

Water is lost during the cooling process and make-up filtration process is used to replenish the water reservoir used for cooling. There are four reasons for this water loss:

• Naturally occurring evaporation
• Blowdown/Bleeding: to reduce salinity and particle concentration
• Drift: Mist and/or tiny water drops in small quantities may be carried from the cooling tower, but water loss is less significant than in blowdown and evaporation.
• Overflows or basin leaks: Cooling towers should be examined and properly maintained to avoid overflows and leaks.

Cooling Water Filtration Technologies

Making an informed decision about which filtration technology is the right one for your system is essential. It is important to understand the general application requirements, including filtration degrees, as well as reviewing the advantages / disadvantages and costs of each technology.

Centrifugal Separators

Centrifugal separators, also known as hydrocyclones, use centrifugal forces to separate heavy solids larger than 70 micron from water. They are frequently used together with a filtration system that can remove finer particles, but centrifugal separators do not stop organic particles.

Traditional Sand Filters

Sand/media filters route the cooling water to the media bed. There are various types of filter beds, such as, sand, crushed glass, basalt and more. As the water passes through the bed, the particles get trapped and the filtered water then goes to the bottom of the tank to be discharged through the outlet.

For more information, please visit CHT TECK.

Automatic Screen Filters

Automatic screen filters use multiple screens which trap the suspended solids in the cooling water as it passes through them. Filtered water then flows through the filter outlet. The gradual dirt buildup (cake) on the inner screen’s surface begins the cleaning process.

Polymeric Disc Filters

Disc filters are made up of series of flat grooved discs that are stacked together under pressure. As the unfiltered water flows through the discs, trapping the particles. As more particles are trapped, the filter’s pressure differential increases, beginning the cleaning process.

Cartridges & Bag Filters

Cartridge and bag filters are flexible solutions for side-stream filtration. However, they are consumable and require manual replacement. This should be taken into consideration as the disposable nature of these filters will increases expenses over time.

High-Efficiency Media Filters

Like the sand filters mentioned above, high-efficiency media filtration utilizes sand and crushed glass as the media, but the sand characteristics differ here. Another difference is the cross-flow patterns produced by the water injectors, sweeping over the media bed surface. This causes some of the water to flow in parallel to the top layer for submicron filtration and prevents media fouling and channeling through the media. Contaminants within and on the media are removed by an automatic backwash cycle.

Review of Side Stream Filtration System Characteristics

(click the image to enlarge):

Why Cooling Water Systems Are So Complex

Cooling water poses four significant challenges and if not controlled, over time, all can reduce performance and efficient use of energy.

1. Biological contamination: By design, the cooling tower environment is high in temperature and humidity, making it the perfect breeding ground for bacteria. Even the slight accumulation of biofilm inside components can dramatically reduce efficiency.
2. Corrosion: When the air, sodium and additional chemicals present in water are not monitored, they can erode metal and result in leaks in equipment throughout the process and in cooling towers.
3. Fouling: When dirt, dust and/or debris clog the cooling surfaces or pipes and the water cannot flow as needed, the air is not cooled as required. This leads to wasted energy, as the system works harder to attain the same outcome.
4. Scaling: During the heat exchange process, various minerals, such as calcium, may accumulate on the heat exchange surfaces, creating layers of scaling. If not removed, scaling will increase operating costs.

Selecting the Right Cooling Tower Filtration System

Here are some factors to take into account when contemplating which type of water cooling  filtration system would best meet the requirements and provide the best filtration performance:

• Location: Where in the cooling process will the filtration system be installed?
• Footprint: Are there any limitations on installation space?
• Flow rate: What is the system’s flow rate? Is the preferred pressure variable or steady?
• Filtration degree: What is the micron size of the particles that need to be filtered?
• Particle characteristics: Sand, algae, etc.
• Costs (purchase, maintenance, operations, backwash, energy): Knowing this will assist in the decision.

Pro Tip: For optimal cooling tower performance, consider combining full-stream filtration for comprehensive water treatment with side-stream filtration to manage contaminants and reduce system strain, ensuring both immediate and long-term efficiency.

Amiad’s Cooling Water Filters

Amiad’s cooling tower filtration and technologies help maintain good water quality, improve heat transfer efficiency, decrease operating costs and are ideally suited to help cope with the challenges associated with the following cooling water applications:

• Spray nozzle filters for nozzle protection
• Side stream industrial water filters for cooling towers
• Full stream cooling systems
• Upstream filtration – heat exchangers protection
• Condenser and chiller loop protection
• Cooling tower makeup

With a comprehensive product line and various filtration technologies – screen, disc, centrifugal separators, media and high-efficiency media – Amiad offers customized solutions for the harshest environments, varying water conditions and demanding technical requirements.

Key Takeaways:

• Cooling tower filtration is crucial for equipment protection and regulatory compliance.
• Filtration methods include side stream, full stream, and make-up water filtration.
• Technologies like centrifugal separators, sand filters, and disc filters each have unique benefits and applications.
• Important considerations for selecting a filtration system include installation location, flow rate, and filtration needs.
• Amiad offers tailored solutions for various cooling water challenges, enhancing efficiency and reducing costs.

You can read more about how our filtration solutions for water treatment for cooling towers filtration filter were implemented in our following case studies:

Cooling Tower Filtration for Oil and Gas Company, USA.

Cooling Tower Sidestream Filtration, USA

FAQs

What is cooling equipment used for?

Cooling equipment cools down industrial chillers, heat exchangers, finished products and other devices used throughout the production process.

Are there environmental regulations regarding cooling systems?

Yes. These regulations are in place to protect water sources and require cooling systems to be treated and monitored. It is the manufacturers’ responsibility to return the utilized cooling water in a non-pollutant state.

Why is filtration for water cooling systems important?

Filtration systems for cooling towers are crucial. They protect expensive equipment, improve heat transfer rates and chemical effectiveness, reduce water and chemical consumption and maintenance and energy costs.

Amiad also provides treatment solutions for other challenging industrial water applications, such as, process water filtration, intake water filtration and seawater filtration.

Want to learn more about cooling water filtration?

Are you interested in learning more about Cooling Tower Solutions? Contact us today to secure an expert consultation!