014 Transcript

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[Music]

welcome to scaling up the podcast for

water treatise by water treaters where

we’re scaling up on water treatment

knowledge so we don’t scale up our

systems hi folks I’m trace Blackmore I

am the host of scaling up and I am super

excited because we’ve got the AWT

convention right around the corner so I

hope you’ve got your tickets for that

and more so I hope to see you there I am

going to be broadcasting at the

convention so maybe I’ll talk with you

on an interview but I do want you to

make sure that you get from me one of

the scaling up buttons that I’ve had

created my goal is to have everybody in

the convention hall walking around with

a scaling up button I’m hoping that

water traders that don’t know about the

show we’ll learn about the show and then

let me know what I can do to make the

show even better I think I’ve said on

our earlier broadcast that we’re well

above 1500 downloads per episode so you

guys are really embracing the show and I

want to thank you for that and I think

one of the reasons that people enjoy the

show is because I’m answering the

questions that you guys are giving to me

to answer so please keep those coming

while today’s show I thought that we

would talk about polymers and we all

have polymers in our product and we all

know that polymers do certain things and

one category of polymers do does this

the other category does this and some do

better of that than they do this and

there are hundreds and hundreds and

hundreds of polymers so how do we keep

them all straight well last year Mike

Standish of radical polymers put

together a presentation for AWT where he

truly boiled down what we needed to know

about polymers and then also how we can

take all of those categories and lump

them into three simple categories so we

know what they do based on functional

I thought that I could sound smart and

just read his paper but then I thought

maybe it makes more sense for me to have

Mike on the show so I called it up and

he said absolutely he would love to come

on staring up and share what he

presented with the association of Water

Technologies here on scaling-up

so we’re going to talk with Mike but

before we do we are going to talk a

little bit about stack temperatures so

another issue of the boiling point and

the boiling point is stuff that I see

other water treaters do that makes me go

I wish they wouldn’t do that or I wish

they maybe would do something and

because it frustrates me it should

frustrate you and I’m going to share it

with you so you can be better than the

person that I saw I’m going to protect

the names I will protect the innocent

although this person was not innocent

because they were the offender of what I

was getting ready to tell you so I was I

was hired by a customer to look at a

water treatment account and it was a

boiler and they were concerned about

what was going on with their system as

far as efficiency well I was there when

the water treater was running their

tests and I asked them a question about

the stack temperatures now for those of

you that don’t know stack temperatures

is just simply the temperature of the

gas the exhaust after the heat the flame

goes through the boiler and exhaust out

and for those of you that don’t know

there is a thermometer located on the

stack to let us know what the

temperature is now I asked him why he

didn’t record this and he told me I’m a

water trader I don’t do anything with

that flame that’s why this is a boiling

point because we are responsible for

making sure we’re taking care of the

entire system and that stack temperature

is a look inside that boiler to see how

efficient we are

now if you just get one stack

temperature it’s not going to tell you

anything but over time if you and your

customer are recording those stack

temperatures you’ll be able to see if

that temperature is one staying the same

if it’s getting hotter or if it’s

getting cooler let’s look at both of

those scenarios so if it’s staying the

same it’s staying the same let’s say

that it’s getting cooler

what does that tell us I’ve said in

other shows our job is heat transfer

efficiency management so we’re putting

that flame and through the boiler by the

way that big hole that it goes through

first it’s called the Morrison 2 for

5000 points in the lead if you’re ever

on Jeopardy so it goes through that

Morrison tube and then it does however

many passes that boiler is and it will

go out of the stack and the heat that

was not transferred from that flame into

the water is now wasted and going out to

the atmosphere so if we see that

temperature getting cooler that’s

telling us that we’re transferring more

heat from the it’s a firetube boiler

from the inside of those tubes to the

outside where the water is well that’s

good we’re paying for that gas to create

that flame so we can heat the water

that’s the whole point we don’t want to

use any excess gas or lose any excess

heat that we don’t have to so the

inverse of that we see that stack

temperature getting hotter well that

tells us that there’s something on those

tubes

that’s insulating that heat inside that

tube so we can’t transfer it out now

that might be an indication that we’re

starting to scale some ion inside the

system now if we ran the proper test we

should be able to look back and see

exactly what’s going on oh wait a second

that water softener hasn’t been working

in a while maybe that’s what’s going on

and some other tests that I run confirm

that maybe everything’s working fine and

we’re wondering what the heck’s going on

well have you ever noticed and I’m

talking I’m visualizing a fire

– boiler right now but have you ever

noticed when you look on the backside of

the boiler so now the front side that

big tube I said is called the Morrison

tube so the front side is where the

combustion chamber is and that’s blowing

the flame back and on the back side of

the boiler we’ve got that little

peephole that’s there if we open that we

should see a nice efficient bluish

colored flame there if you open that up

and you see an orange or yellow flame

that’s not good that’s not a well-tuned

flame and there’s a lot of byproducts

that are being produced because that’s

not an efficient flame ie boiler suit

and suit is way more insulative than

scale is at lower amounts really at any

amounts but we’re going to notice it a

lot quicker and suit is way more

insulative then scale is so if we notice

that our program looks great we’ve got

all the evidence that we can back that

up it’s that flame looks horrible well

that’s what’s happening and you might

say well I’m a water treat or I don’t

treat the flame side but your job is

heat transfer efficiency manager and you

are the person that is the liaison

between that equipment and between the

owner of that equipment that equipment

cannot speak directly to the owner they

need a translator and that is you your

job is to make sure that they’re

communicating properly and you’re going

to say that this flame is not tuned up

the way that it should and these are the

issues that is causing you should get a

boiler company to come out and tune this

up for you and what a great thought to

get some extra leaves if you befriend a

boiler company and learn a little bit

more how boilers work teach them a

little bit more how water treatment

works that’s a pretty good relationship

now you’re looking at the stock

temperatures after everything’s

corrected and you’re seeing that those

that temperature is a lot lower now that

those things are fixed if you don’t keep

track of your stat tempered

you’re never going to know what they’re

telling you so hopefully on every

service you’re recording that hopefully

your customer might be recording that

and a lot of the boilers out there will

actually record that for you so if you

know how to use that user interface you

can see what the temperature is over the

last month over every single minute of

that month so have somebody show you how

to use that if you have one of those

systems so I hope you’re taking to heart

that you’re not just a water trader your

job is to be a heat transfer efficiency

manager and it’s your job to make sure

that the equipment is speaking through

you to that customer today my lab

partner is Mike Standish and I had the

pleasure of meeting Mike probably about

12 years ago when we were elected on the

AWT Board together and got to experience

the trials and tribulations of working

on a WT together since that time he’s

become a really good friend of mine and

a huge resource for my company and I

want to introduce everybody to Mike

Standish how are you doing Mike I’m

doing great tres thank you very much and

thank you for the opportunity to be your

lab partner today absolutely a lot of

people ask me questions about blending

and I know a lot of us are out there and

we just simply use our products as

they’re made but there are materials

that go into those products in order for

us to make them and that’s where you

have your expertise so that’s what I was

hoping that we could talk today to our

audience and let them know you know

exactly what is this stuff that goes in

our stuff yeah absolutely and in fact

you know in some ways is pretty complex

and in other ways is it’s quite simple

and so I think you know we can kind

demystify some of the perceptions around

the additives phosphonates polymers and

so on and yeah make it maybe a little

bit more simple where people can make

wise choices and how they approach water

treatment and I will say that that is

one of your talents you are able to take

very complex items

present them in a very simplistic way

just as you did last year in your paper

to the association of water technology

so I’m hoping to get to that but I

thought before we did I’d ask you a

couple of questions just so the audience

gets to know Mike Standish a little bit

better so how did you come into the

water treatment industry well if I’m

brutally honest we’ll start off with

some embarrassment when I was in high

school and my first year of college I

actually worked scooping ice cream at

Baskin Robbins he started at the

University of Tennessee Chattanooga in

the chemistry department and I had that

one of the professor’s come up to me one

day and said hey you want a job and I

like I want to do anything but scoop ice

cream you know

by the way Baskin Robbins has many more

than 31 flavors so there’s a lot of

scoop but anyway and so I went to work

for a company as a co-op student where I

went to the school and work I did in a

parallel program and did that full-time

school and about 3035 hours a week of

work and the company I went to work for

had a stake and supplying polymers for

the water treatment industry and I was

just fortunate to have a great mentor

there that you know wanted to help me

learn and and wanted to teach me at

least what he knew about water treatment

and then kind of went from there so and

then ultimately you started your own

company

what was that ride like well I’m still

on the ride it’s somewhat of a roller

coaster but it was great I this is

actually my 31st year in in the industry

started in 1986 as a 18 year old and I

spent most of that time working for very

large corporations global companies and

you know at some point I just got to the

to the point where I felt like you know

look this is something I could do myself

and frankly the biggest driver to start

the business was I felt like there’s a

real need particularly with independent

water

phears because what was happening is you

had the big global guys – I wouldn’t say

turn their back to the small guys but

essentially you know just did not

dedicate a lot of resource to service

the independent companies with

technology and support and customer

service and so we really saw a nice

opportunity to come in with that

mentality that go overboard in the way

that we service and independent water

treaters and and the industry has been

very receptive to that we did something

a little unique and when I say we my

wife I’m a chemist and my wife’s a

chemist and our oldest daughter is a

chemist so we kind of have a built-in

you know set of resources at least on

the chemistry side and one of the things

that we did that was kind of unique when

we started the businesses we spent the

first full year not trying to sell

anything we rented lab space and we just

did product development for actually

about 15 months and then we launched our

company and our product technologies at

the 2014 AWT meeting and since then it’s

it’s been really gratifying right if you

will on the roller coaster well Mike in

addition to owning your own business you

own a family-run business and I know

that’s very common in the water

treatment industry but sometimes they

run smoother than others and your

company seems to run pretty smooth with

your family members how do you do that

well that’s a great question that you

know my wife and I so my wife’s leslie

is more of a polymer synthesis chemist

i’m more on the application side so our

roles were pretty well divided and and

you know we we have separate things that

we do so that there’s rarely kind of any

butting heads there now our oldest

daughter Chelsea she works with me on

the applications I primarily and you

know I have to say we did this twice

when we were I mentioned that we were

started up a bit

in his research for the first year that

wasn’t as smooth just everybody kind of

getting along there but Chelsea actually

went off to graduate school came back to

work for us on a full-time basis and you

know frankly is gone just

extraordinarily well in the past couple

of years I think you know I think I

don’t have any great insight there other

than just saying we we all have mutual

respect for each other we all know that

we’re growing in the same direction and

with the same vigor and we’re all trying

to get to the same point and I think you

know it’s helpful to keep that in mind

each and every day but you know for us

so far there’s really been no kind of

issue we all work well together and I

think it’s work now you know ask me in

15 years you know maybe maybe this is

more but at this point it’s worked well

for us for sure well excellent excellent

and then as far as your company how

would you help the regular water treat

are out there what what do you guys do

for that okay so specific to our company

we’re mainly helping people with mineral

scale control and corrosion issues

mainly mild steel corrosion issues but I

would take a step back from that a

little bit because I mentioned that I

had a mentor early and in my career and

one of the things that I did when I was

working as a student is I would have

questions and and I would go to my

boss’s office and he was usually on the

phone talking with a customer so I would

have to sit wait and wait and wait but I

listened you know to his conversations

with customers and one of the things

that really impressed me and was

impressed upon me is he was always

helpful and it didn’t have to be about

the company’s particular products if he

could help solve a problem with a

competitive product or some other pure

technology or what have you he was

always trying to help customers so to

directly answer your question I think

anybody that ever contacts me with

would vouch for this I want to help

people in whatever way that I can from a

technical problem solving point of view

and whether that involves our products

for mental scale or corrosion control or

whether that involves a competitor

product or you know some other product

that we’re not involved in I want to be

a resource for our customers period at

the end because I think looking at this

and the long game people you know

respect that and they’ll come you know

to us when they have an issue and and

you know we’ll built that trust in the

relationship so ultimately we want to be

a resource for our customers across the

board we’re not high sales pitch type

people and so I think you know I would

invite your audience to test us on that

that’s that’s how I grew up host I was

mentored and that is really stuck with

me throughout my career well as I

mentioned before you have a given talent

for being able to take very complex

issues and boil them down and explain

them in a very simplistic way so I’d

like to ask you how would somebody

define a polymer how would you define a

polymer I would define the polymer in

the simplest terms which is this polymer

is derived from Greek poly meaning many

and mer meaning unit so ultimately

polymers are molecules that are many

units long now I actually have the IU

Pact definition for you know a polymer

and maybe it’s worthwhile kind of

reading that off so people have the

formal definition but because there’s

some nuances there but ultimately

polymers are different than what any

other additive that you’re using of

water and that they in water treatment

in that they are molecules are derived

from putting a bunch of different

molecules together which are called

monomers the IU pack definition is that

a substance composed of molecules

characterized by multiple repetition of

one or more species that are linked to

each other in amount sufficient to

provide a set of properties that

you not very marketed with the addition

or removal or one or a few constituent

units now that’s a long definition but

what I would say from that is is that

you know the idea is is that you’re

linking one or more species together and

whether you have one more one less it

generally doesn’t affect the specific

properties of the overall molecule and

what our polymers all made the same how

do they how to actually do that you know

they’re absolutely not made the same

there are many different ways to make

polymers to go together and to

characterize polymers and frankly some

of the very simplest nuances can have

pretty profound effects and efficacy

that being said most of the polymers

that are they’re used in water treatment

industry are made via a root called free

radical polymerization and essentially

what’s happening there is you add some

materials called initiators into into

the reaction vessel that has the

monomers the single repeating units

those initiators form radicals and the

on the monomers and then once those

monomers are formed as radicals they

start to attach to each other and form

the polymers that’s the most simplistic

way to look at it but there are so many

nuances in the way that the polymers are

put together the different types of

initiators you could use a different

reaction chemistry the different types

of monomers or building bots that you

use that can have very very dramatic

consequences in terms of how the product

works

well how many polymers would you say are

out there well hundreds literally

hundreds that there’s at least 60 to 75

truly unique polymers that are regularly

employed in the water treatment industry

for scale control and that’s not

accounting for all the different

manufacturers so if you take those

twenty-five or so you know just base

compositions and manufacturing processes

and then you multiply that I have for

many you know polymer suppliers that

there are there’s hundreds if not

thousands of polymers however that being

said the thing that is really

interesting is is that all polymers that

are used in water treatment for mental

scale control are comprised of three

different types of building blocks

carboxylates sulfonates and or non

ionics and everything is a variation on

the theme between those three types of

building blocks to make those polymers

so out of these out of these thousand

polymers we boil down to about sixty to

seventy-five that’s in the water

treatment industry and then out of that

those are all down into three groups

they absolutely do they boil down into

three classifications well can we talk

about those classifications and why

certain things are in there sure so one

of the things I’d like to say is is that

with polymers selection of polymers in

particular that their right approaches

is to start with the problem and work

your way back to the polymer selection

rather than starting with some polymer

with a bunch of marketing and technical

information and trying to kind of fit

that into an application people should

always start with the problem and work

their way back so by doing that what you

would look at is is the three different

types of functional groups carboxylates

are typically materials like polycrylic

acid or maleic base materials and people

probably familiar with those terms to an

extent those materials are used for kind

of general purpose building blocks they

tend to be pretty functional for things

like calcium carbonate control calcium

sulfate control they don’t really have

carboxylate really don’t provide much

functionality for stabilization things

like iron or phosphate they just don’t

have have that functionality but they’re

they’re the most economical

raw materials out of the three as a

general rule and kind of provide the

base functionality of the polymer the

other thing to say about carboxylates is

that most polymers that you know people

are going to buy are going to be most

heavily weighted with the carboxylated

monomers sulfonates are tend to be

employed in areas where you need to

incorporate phosphate stabilization

properties iron stabilization properties

or zinc or if you need to add better

stability of the polymer and high ionic

strength environments or high hardness

environments what-have-you and then the

non ionic SAR more due on that they are

used to either enhance properties like

calcium carbonate control or calcium

phosphate control or enhanced properties

like crystal modification or sometimes

non ionic SAR utilized just to change

the way that the polymer goes together

which is a little bit more complex topic

but in general just kind of change if

you will the polymer architecture which

can have some impact upon performance

calculator like that a little bit yeah

would that be if you know I’m going out

to buy a water heater and the home depot

I’ll it has good better best do these

three categories sort of fall into that

as well I would not I would say no and

in fact so the answer is yes and no but

but the first answer would be no I would

definitely caution all of the the

listeners to the podcast today to not

buy or select products based on

composition alone if the key is to fit

the right polymer with the right

application and frankly sometimes the

the cheapest simplest polymer can be

absolutely the best choice for an

application and sometimes the most

complex most nuanced polymer can be the

best for the particular application but

I would not look at it in good better

and best in gem

however what you can say is when you

start to add different functionalities

you start to increase the efficacy of

these products for you know different

types of scales so I think it’s more

about the right selection than about

good better and best so as a water

treaty we really need to know about the

water that we’re treating we need to be

able to hypothesize what those issues

are going to be and then we need to talk

with somebody like yourself to say you

know these are my issues how or what can

I use to combat this problem yeah that’s

exactly right and so let me give you a

little bit of an example you may have a

water that you’re treating and in your

primary issue is you know your towers

near a construction zone and you’ve got

a lot of suspended solids in power but

otherwise you know your LSI is pretty

low corrosion rate is not remarkable the

best selection and that might just be a

medium molecular weight polycrylic acid

to just provide some basic dispersion of

the solids that are being incorporated

into the tower due to you know airborne

debris from the construction site so you

know it’s not always you don’t always go

to the most complex most expensive

material you absolutely want to match

the application with the with the

polymer functionality now Mike you just

brought up a new term there you

mentioned medium molecular weight what

does that mean

okay well Tracy can it can actually mean

I’m not trying to be cute here but it

can mean anything but in general with

polymers that are used for mineral scale

control most of those are at a molecular

weight of less than $10,000 and Dalton

is a term that actually just means you

know combined atomic mass so we’re

talking about polymers that are

relatively low molecular weight compared

to say flocculent type materials that

are used in the waste treatment

applications that can be in the hundreds

of thousands or millions or even

Enza million smart clear away so our

scale control polymers that are used in

process applications tend to be for the

most part everything below ten thousand

molecular weight so a medium molecular

weight make may be in the four to six

thousand molecular weight range and to

make a little comment about that what

you tend to find as a rule of thumb is

that polymers that tend to be a little

bit lower molecular weight say you know

below two thousand tend to be better

scale inhibitors maintaining solubility

of the scale and polymers that tend to

be higher say you know four or five up

to ten thousand molecular weight tend to

be more functional as particulate

disperses now there’s exceptions to

those kind of rules but that’s generally

true so a medium molecular weight

polymer in this context is something is

about four to six thousand molecular

weight all right so you mentioned before

that we need to start with the problem

and then use this as a tool to solve the

problem and you also mention that

there’s a lot of marketing material out

there and I know when I look at

marketing material from the

manufacturers every single thing out

there will slice dice julienne and take

care of anything under the Sun what

advice would you have to our listeners

how to go beyond that marketing material

absolutely so I would make one comment

is that the people that generate are the

companies that generate technical data

for these polymers that all the

reputable suppliers out there they are

putting out good data and earnest data

so there would be nothing to suggest is

not that but it is marketing material so

my biggest piece of advice would be is

to engage directly with the supplier and

have a technical relationship such that

you can describe the polymer are sorry

describe the problem that you’re

experiencing and developer trustful

relationships such that you can be

confident that their recommendation

coming back is you know as appropriate

and I would say try to find a supplier

that sometimes when you’re talking with

them that their product is not the

answer to your problem because you know

there’s there’s there’s no wonder

polymer out there and it’s really no

supplier that has the solution to every

single problem and application so you

really need to have a partner you need

to have somebody that understands you

and your problem wants to help I think

so I think so and I think you can find

that at multiple sources within this

industry I think that’s one of the

benefits of being within the AWT and

being independent water treatment

company that’s a collaborative

environment so let’s let’s ask this so

now we’ve done all that work we think

everything is perfect if we go out and

we find that it’s not the right polymer

how would we know that

what would we do well that’s a great

question I I think the worst-case

scenario that we’re you you find that

out is that you see you know you you see

failure that you see that the polymer

doesn’t function to solve the the issue

that you that you’re trying to solve so

I think that’s kind of the worst case

scenario but frankly there are some

pretty basic things that you that anyone

could do to look at structure function

properties of polymers you know as an

example you can look at stability of

different polymers in the presence of

increasing concentrations of calcium so

if you’re looking to run you know a

polymer for a high cycle

application where you have pretty high

pH alkalinity and hardness levels and

you’re concerned about polymer stability

you could take you know some of your

cooling water and then test for polymer

stability by simple you know turbidity

and visual type testing or you can even

do bottle testing to look at differences

if you want to go to that extreme but I

think you know ultimately just having

that collaborative relationship with the

supplier is the best best option so when

we put all of our products together

polymers are one ingredient do we need

to be aware that some things work better

with others yes I think so and if I you

know there’s this idea in particular

that polymers and phosphonates can work

synergistically together the interesting

thing about that is that there’s there’s

this basic perception that that’s true

but there’s not a lot of evidence out

there is no other technical data to say

yeah if I use my polymer and phosphonate

together that that I’m going to see one

and one equals something more than two

and in fact there’s some theories out

there that they could compete with each

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