137 Transcript

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hello scaled-up nation and welcome to

the scaling up h2o podcast the podcast

where we’re scaling up on knowledge so

we don’t scale up our systems

I am trace Blackmore I am the host of

scaling up h2o and folks happy may 8th

happy may 6 to me two days ago actually

celebrated my 45th birthday I don’t know

how that happened 45 years old for fun I

looked up who I share my birthday with

and I actually share a birthday with

Sigmund Freud I don’t know if that says

anything about me but I also share a

birthday with George Clooney so I think

by default that makes me Batman and I

think that’s appropriate because as you

know I compare water treaters to

superheroes all the time I think it was

about three years ago on this podcast

when I first did a microphone check on a

brand new microphone that I received

I’ve since gifted that microphone to

somebody that started out a podcast but

I remember I was just playing around and

I did this little thing on water

treaters are superheroes and since that

time I’ve seen other people post on

their social media pages how water

treaters are superheroes so I love that

others agree with me when you think

about it with all the things that nature

throws against us you have to consider

us a superhero think about it we protect

metals from rapidly corroding now steel

a metal it wants to corrode it doesn’t

like existing in the state that it is in

it wants to exist in a more stable state

meaning it wants to rust and then we put

that metal we put that steel in water

will be called water the universal

solvent that means it wants to corrode

things corrode things like steel so

we’re putting something that wants to

corrode into something that wants to

corrode it and now our job is to protect

that metal from rapidly corroding how

else would you define what we

do other than we are superheroes so I

hope you spread the word about that

nation you’ve heard me say on this

podcast before whatever area of water

treatment you practice there is most

definitely some sort of certification

that you can acquire now for the folks

that practice the same type of water

treatment that I do that certification

is the certified water technologist

that’s administered by the Association

of Water Technologies now we call that

the C WT and there are two individuals

that recently achieved their C WTS that

I wanted to recognize on the scaling up

h2o podcast that is Patrick shaver he’s

of Global Water Technologies and then

Ryan Cochrane of aqua troll well folks

they received their CW teas this year

and I know they are both listeners of

the scaling up h2o podcast so you guys

are now superheroes in your own right

and folks if you have not considered

looking to see what designation is out

there for the type of water treatment

that you practice and going after that

designation I’m going to encourage you

to do so by doing that you are proving

to the world that you are in this

industry to stay that you are taking it

seriously and you are doing what you can

to raise the bar within that industry

just like Patrick and Ryan what can we

all do to raise the industry just a

little bit and just think what will

happen if we all do that no nation can

you remember a time where you didn’t

know what a cooling tower was like I

said have you practiced the same type of

water treatment that I do you see

cooling towers each and every day but

before you got into this industry you

probably didn’t know what a cooling

tower was back then you never noticed

them but now you cannot help but notice

them they’re everywhere the funny thing

is is they were everywhere before you

just didn’t know to look for them and

now that we know that

I’ve got this disease where I can’t stop

looking for cooling towers they almost

just call out to me I’m not even trying

to look for I mean I’ll say hey there’s

a cooling tower over there they they

call out to me I think that’s something

that water treaters just that’s maybe

one of the super powers that we have to

share a funny story with you my wife

Stacy and I were in Rome and we were

looking at some historic buildings and

right beside that there was a cooling

tower and I remember I started pointing

out some features of the cooling tower

to her and she just looked at me and

said trace we’ve flown 5,000 miles and

you’re looking at a cooling tower and I

think I said something like well Stacey

you can take the boy out of water

treatment but you can never take the

water treatment out of the boy and of

course she filed for divorce immediately

when we returned home no that didn’t

happen we’re happily married just a joke

but I just say that because I think a

lot of people are like that they just

notice things in the environment

wherever they are that relate to what

they do on a regular basis here’s the

thing about cooling towers they are very

effective at removing heat and they can

be used in just about every industry

that you can imagine because of their

ability to effectively remove heat now

because they’re in so many industries

we’ve developed different terms for the

same piece of equipment and we call

cooling towers a bunch of different

things we call parts on a cooling tower

a bunch of different things so if you’re

now having a conversation with somebody

and you call something X and the other

person normally calls it Y you’re

probably sitting there agreeing with

each other but you have no idea what

you’re talking about because you’re not

using that common terminology now if

you’ve ever called a manufacturer of a

cooling tower and didn’t use the

appropriate word they will probably take

the time to educate you or ask you the

question what exactly are you talking

about a lot of times when people say

that they mean this is that what you’re

talking about

and that’s been my experience when I’ve

worked with manufacturers well folks

that is what today’s show is all about a

vApp ko is here to help us with a common

language for all these things that we

call cooling towers and all the parts

that are on cooling towers and Brett

Alexander of of a pro is going to

educate us on everything about cooling

towers well not everything but he’s

gonna give us a pretty good lesson on

cooling towers he’s got to let us know

that just because we call it a cooling

tower its proper name is not necessarily

a cooling tower folks I know you are

going to learn a lot today so please

welcome Brett Alexander my lab partner

today is Brett Alexander of evap CO

Brett how are you today hey trace gonna

be here absolutely man thanks so much

for coming on I’m really excited about

today’s show because we have the water

treatment world and we have the

manufacturers world and we don’t always

communicate in the exact same way we’re

gonna fix that today yeah I’m excited

you know I kind of started in the water

treatment industry a few years ago and

then moved over the manufacturing side

so I kind of have the point of view on

both sides which is nice well I think

that’s definitely gonna help today’s

conversation but before we get started

with that do you mind letting the

scaling-up nation know a little bit

about yourself

yeah so I’m a Midwest kid born and

raised in Wichita Kansas grew up you

know like in sports basketball baseball

while you know with school like in math

and science so I took the talents up to

the University of Kansas for school and

decided to go engineering route

originally thought that I wanted to go

you know petroleum engineering a lot of

my friends parents growing up we’re all

in the oil and gas industry and so that

was kind of attractive to me but I kind

of was doing some more research and

decided to switch over to chemical

because it didn’t really pigeonhole me

so much and just oil and gas

so after graduation I decided to go and

oil and gas got a job with Halliburton I

was down in Houston Texas and my role

with them was actually the drilling

fluids engineer which is a fancy way of

calling a mud engineer so I would go out

to the rig when they’re drilling the

well and I was in charge of treating the

drilling fluid so we drill a well

whether it’s for natural gas or oil you

drill through you know the earth but you

have to bring all those cuttings and the

earth back up to the surface while

stabilizing the wellbore so you know you

get you’re doing a lot of the same

properties as you would with cooling

water but it’s a lot higher pressure and

temperatures and you’re throwing in 50

pound 100 pound bags of stuff instead of

measuring to the ppm so that’s kind of

how I got my start you know treating

fluids did that for about three years

and then 2015 came around and that’s

when you know the oil prices kind of

took a took a spike down and so they

laid out a bunch of Engineers my rig

that I was working on got stacked back

and so they decided to let me go and I’m

telling you that that two months of

being unemployed felt like two years you

know Jenny of the younger listeners you

know if you have to go through time

where your company goes down and they

have to layoff employees don’t get down

it seems like you know a long time when

you’re looking for a job every day for a

couple months but with our background

and our specialties you’ll find

something so I since found a job with

they probably heard of them before

Malka water you know they’re the big the

big water treatment company you know and

I I really I really enjoyed my time with

them you know they’ve got some good

training programs so learned a lot about

the cooling water and the health side of

it I was in Austin Texas at that time

and you know being in Texas there’s not

too many boilers down there so I was

primarily cooling water application

started in the heavy industry with them

so power plants big central plants and

then also transit

over to their institutional side which

hospitals hotels commercial buildings

data centers so kind of seeing all the

different types of cooling water places

that you can go into and about two years

ago Ave Abdo came looking for a kind of

chemical engineer I had been in Texas

for about five years at the time and I

was kind of ready for you know kind of a

culture change and I definitely got that

by coming out to the East Coast to

Baltimore Maryland and joining the of

Abdo team so now I’m on the

manufacturing side but we’re a little

different than a lot of our competition

because Valco actually has a water

treatment division inside of the company

so you know we sell the cooling tower or

evaporative condenser closer to cooler

but we also can then offer water

treatment solutions to accompany that so

that’s been something different for me

learning from both sides yeah when I

spoke with your boss Chris Nagle on

episode 37 we spoke a lot about your

department and at the time that was the

only one that was around that I’m aware

of I’m not sure if other manufacturers

are doing that but I can tell the nation

firsthand that personally you know

working with you guys and then you guys

working with the Association of Water

Technologies you have just shared some

tremendous information that have changed

the way of how us water treaters do

things specifically passivation which I

think we’re going to touch on just

briefly a little bit later in the show

but I want to say hats off to you guys

when you guys are producing some amazing

stuff and it’s coming from the

manufacturer and for the manufacturer to

say we’ve done these water treatment

tests we can help provide you with

procedures that actually work instead of

just seen in the OEM that you know you

guys are on your own you should use your

water trader and we’re out of it but by

the way if you do something wrong you’re

gonna violate your warranty so I just

want to commend you guys for doing that

yeah and we’re not so much coming in and

stepping on the toes of people you know

with liquid chemical feed systems and

stuff we kind of have

different more sustainable focused you

know with a non chemical type device and

then solid chemistry and now like a

water efficiency focused pretreatment

system and our passivation research so

it’s a kind of a different niche to it

but we like the direction we’re going in

the industry yeah again I just want to

commend you guys for it and I’m curious

what’s the culture shock that you

experienced from movie from Texas to

Baltimore so I traded in my barbecue and

tex-mex and now I eat a lot of seafood

that’s why I tell everybody but the sea

here is fresh and when our

representatives that sell the equipment

come up with their customers we take

them on fishing trips sometimes and

going out to the Chesapeake Bay and

catching rockfish and you know that’s

just a fun time my favorite crab cake is

in Baltimore

it’s faidley’s and every time I go up

there I always make sure I stop there

and once a year we get a shipment in

right around the new year where we get

12 crab cakes shipped to us and we cook

those on special occasions have you ever

had them yes I have and they’re they’re

the size of softballs

they’re awesome yes donation I highly

recommend you check those out Brett I

understand you recently got married I

did October 4th

so I was dating Tiffany for about two

and a half three years and when I moved

up here from Texas that’s where we met

down Texas and she moved up with me to

this new place neither of us have lived

and you know we lived together for about

a year and you know it just was right so

we said I do

October 4th went on a nice honeymoon and

Thailand and Cambodia and so that was

sweet to see that side of the world I

had never been over there before not

many cooling towers over there well hey

let’s get into the meat of this

conversation because I know for a fact

and working with you guys

I tend to call everything a cooling

tower and I know that isn’t the correct

way and you say no there are specific

terminologies for what the cooling

towers actually doing and that gives us

separate definition so Brett if you

don’t mind how do you as the

manufacturer define a cooling tower so

we give it a simple definition a simple

open cooling tower is just a big metal

box like the factory assembled one a big

metal box used to reject heat from a

building or a process through

evaporation when I’m going to talk about

a lot of stuff today it’s going to be

what you’ll typically see in the field

because there’s so many different types

of equipment and setups but I’m going to

talk more of the general what I think

the listeners will most often run into

and kind of focus on that

so that is an open cooling tower you

know just the general one where you have

the water flowing in to the top of it

and then it cascades down over a PVC

fill media and then you’re also having a

fan push air or pull air through the

cooling tower so that air and water that

interacts some of the heat evaporates

out of the unit I mean then that cooler

water falls into the basin of the unit

that then can be pumped back to the

chiller or the heat exchanger or

whatever the load is but that’s not it

because that’s what a cooling tower does

but depending on what it actually is

being used for and how it’s designed we

go a step further and we give them

another name and I believe those names

are either a cooling tower a closed

circuit cooler or an evaporative

condenser so help the scaling-up Nation

understand what the differences of those

are so what I just explained was a

cooling tower but I like to call it an

open cooling tower because that

condenser water is open to the

atmosphere right so when that air comes

in its directly seeing that that water

flowing through it those are the gonna

be the most common what you’ll see the

other one for HVAC applications that you

can see is a closed circuit cooler or it

can also be called a fluid cooler these

look very similar to an open cooling

tower

but the difference is there’s a coil

inside of this so the recirculating

water now falls over the coil as air is

moving up through that cooler so you can

think of it we pretty much move to heat

exchanger inside of the tower right so

this cooler now has a coil inside of it

and you’re flowing water and spraying it

over the coil and inside that coil is a

fluid a process fluid

it could be glycol it could be water it

could be oil for an industrial process

something that needs to be cooled and

some applications you’ll see a fluid

cooler end is water source heat pump

applications and then also maybe like

data centers hospitals anything that

kind of has a critical process where you

really want to keep that fluid clean

because the fluid inside of that coil is

not not seeing the the air the

atmosphere so it’s not picking up all

the dirt and debris that’s getting

scrubbed into the tower so that fluid

inside the coil stays a lot cleaner so

I’ll tell you the story the first time I

saw a closed circuit cooler in Austin

Texas you know traditionally an open

cooling tower market and I go out to

this commercial building and they they

called me out they’re like hey we think

we got scale on our unit so I’ve been

about a year and a half and go out there

open the louver and look inside and I

seen this coil inside and I’m like had

no idea what it was and never seen one

before and it had white spots all over

it so it was a couple of first of a

couple of things you know seeing a

closed circuit cooler for the first time

and then also seen a white rusted coil

inside which will hit on later I’m sure

yeah I can’t bring you guys all without

talking about white rust all right

definitely but yeah so that was my kind

of first time seeing a closed circuit

cooler but the big key to that is if you

look inside and you see a coil inside of

there that coil can be galvanized steel

or it can be stainless steel or the

primarily the two metallurgies you’ll

see and thinking back I don’t think I’ve

seen that many stainless steel coal

I’ve seen a few but by far most of the

ones I see you’re galvanized right it’s

definitely the best first cost advantage

going galvanized yeah it’s hot dipped

galvanized the coils are primarily G 235

hot dipped galvanized and so the G 235

means you’re getting two point three

five ounces per square foot of zinc on

that carbon steel coil and so that zinc

then acts as the sacrificial anode for

the coil right the zinc will give itself

up before you get to the bare carbon

steel of the coil but of course those

coils then require passivation to extend

the service life and make sure you don’t

have premature corrosion and end up with

leaks in that coil well tell you what

Brett how about when we get finished

talking about the cooling tower designs

we go into the metallurgies and you can

tell us everything that we as water

treaters need to know from the

manufacturer about that yeah that sounds

good I’m getting ahead of myself no

you’re fine so we talked about a closed

circuit cooler and then we have an

evaporative condenser now both of those

have coils what’s the difference so

pretty much the same an evaporative

condenser is pretty much the same as a

closed circuit cooler the difference is

is what’s inside of that coil the fluid

inside of it for evaporative condenser

you’re gonna have a refrigerant flowing

through the coil so ammonia r22 any of

those refrigerant grades and so where

you’ll run into evaporative condensers

are in like food processing plants cold

storage facilities so you know that’s

like our refrigeration reps sell the

evaporative condensers with like an

evaporator system and compressor so

those are kind of the differences and

then they’re and then let’s make sure we

hit on later some of the differences to

what to keep in mind when you treat an

evaporative condenser because they’re

not not the same as a closed circuit

cooler and we’re going to talk about

what the difference is in our water

treatment program needs to be in a bit

but you recently did a webinar for aw

tease young professionals that dealt

with this you want to talk a little bit

about that yeah I think that was about

almost two years ago me and a couple

colleagues we did an AWT young

professionals webinar and the title was

understanding different heat rejection

equipment and how to treat them you know

from a water-treatment standpoint just

kind of what we’re talking about there’s

different types of equipment they

require different water treatment

different things to keep in mind you

know we get into materials of

construction and it’s nice because that

the presentation has you know pictures

and cutouts of the tower so when I’m

explaining water flowing down the tower

Phil and the air going up there’s

actually pictures that you can go and

look at to kind of visualize is that

might be kind of hard to follow me and

explain it it over the podcast but go to

the AWP T’s website into their library

you can see that one of our water

treatment partners down in Houston Texas

actually texted me the other day he goes

hey nice nice webinar you did for AWT

and I didn’t really know he was talking

about it first but he had to go get some

like a credits for it and that was one

he listened to oh credits for his

certified water technologist designation

yep as it very cool I’ll try to put a

link to that but it’s in the members

only section so unless you’re able to

definitely put a link up to that on our

show notes page you know the other item

I want to talk about is water treaters

we’ll call everything a cooling tower

and now you’re educating us know they’re

they’re different terms for that but

they’re also we describe them with how

the water and the air interfaces so do

you mind talking a little bit about that

so there’s two types of cooling towers

with regards to air flow the first one

being counter flow well the counter flow

tower the water flows down the tower

fill media as the air moves up through

it and so they’re moving in opposite

directions so that’s how we get the term

you know

counter flow most counter flow towers

you’ll see you’re pulling air into the

unit from all four sides these are

primarily what we do from a bapto

standpoint we do a lot of counter flow

design so pulling air from four sides

and I’ll get into more that we talk

about treating so the other one is cross

flow cross flow towers you’ll have air

being drawn in from two sides so the two

ends have the fill media on them and so

now you’re pulling in the air from left

to right or right to left and then you

have the water flowing down the fill

again and so now the water and air are

moving across each other so terms get

the name cross flow tower all right so

what about the air so what happens with

the with the air how it’s introduced you

either have a forced draught tower which

has a centrifugal fan at the bottom of

the unit which pushes the air through

the through the tower these typically

use more energy the centrifugal fans

force draught where you’ll typically see

forced draught units or if they need to

be ducted or it’s a low profile type

insulation where they can’t have a tall

tower these force draught units can be

shorter in size so for example in

Washington DC they have a law where no

buildings can be over a certain height

that’s over one of their the monument

building so they do pretty much all

force draft cooling towers and then the

other one that which is most common

which you’ll see is an induced draught

cooling tower which has the fan at the

top of the unit it’s an axial fan which

is pulling the air up through the tower

or inducing it through the film so you

have a forced draught counter flow tower

you know you have a forced draught

cross flow tower induced draught counter

flow tower induced draught cross flow so

there’s different mixtures of those you

can have so let me get into how the the

water in the air

interact in that still media that film

media is typically PVC inside of an open

cooling tower and so the reason you have

that in there as the water goes across

that fill it increases the surface area

of the of the water so then you have

more surface area so then more the air

can contact that and absorb the heat

from the water and then it goes up and

you can evaporate that heat out of the

unit and so you know you might have 95

degree water coming into the top of the

fill and as it goes down through the

fill by the time it exits after it’s

been touching all the air and in contact

with it and now it’s about you know 85

say just a 10 degree difference

Brett there’s no doubt you have educated

a lot of people in the scaled-up nation

about the different types of equipment

that we are treating it’s not all just a

cooling tower and there’s different ways

that they function now you started

talking about this earlier let’s talk

about it now different materials of

construction and typically what we see

out there are galvanized and stainless

steel and there’s different types of

stainless steel so Brett can you define

the different materials of construction

and what the different options are yes

the most common one you will see in the

industry is galvanized steel which is

now G 235 galvanized steel so that then

has that layer of zinc on that carbon

from steel whether it’s the panel or the

coil if it’s a cooler condenser and

Chris Nagel the he is who hired me out

of aapko he has a great podcast with you

I think it’s episode 37 you were right

it is 37 yeah and he gets into like

white rust and you know gets into the

really the weeds on passivation we’ve

done man six seven years early

passivation research here at Vasco on

our units varying different temperatures

different water qualities different

corrosion inhibitors

pH ranges you name it we’ve tested it

and we’ve actually have a white rust

bulletin that kind of you know explains

that and explains you know the

parameters of the water chemistry you

should keep it in during the passivation

procedure visit varies dramatically from

your ongoing parameters so that’s

something to keep in mind we found that

the passivation periods not just a

couple days it’s not like a pretty clean

and flush of new condenser piping it is

you know you’re actually changing the

metallurgy of that new galvanized

whether it’s a coil or panel you know

you’re changing it from that zinc to a

zinc carbonate zinc hydroxide layer so

people are like well how do I know when

that surface is passivated really it’s

it’s the eye test you go out there and

you look at it and the new galvanized

surfaces will be a nice shiny gray and I

mean they’re shiny so you’ll be able to

tell and then once it’s passivated it’ll

look like that battleship that dull gray

color and that means you’ve changed that

zinc layer to a passive film a

protective layer so that’s when you can

kind of change over to your normal water

treatment ongoing system Brett are you

okay if you share that document with us

for the white Russ bulletin and we can

put that on our show notes page yeah the

more people it only helps us from the

manufacturers standpoint if you know the

water treaters out there are properly

passivating units then everybody gets

less phone calls right the startup and

commissioning of a new unit is the most

critical time and when we get the most

phone calls and you know it’s you know

though your unit has you know bad

galvanizing or something on it you know

so it just saves everybody a lot of

headaches down the road if we just had

this information out for the industry

and so everybody knows you know kind of

the research we’ve done and then what

works in your area what doesn’t you know

because we kind of did research for all

over the US and Canada is we sell all

over our listeners you know have a

specific region

where they do the passivation at so we

like to hear feedback on what you’re

doing in your area as well we definitely

appreciate that and in episode 37 I went

on about this but I’m gonna do it a

little bit here your team and my team

has been working very well together for

years and you all have invited me up to

see your facility which is just

incredible and just how you manufacture

everything is is really impressive but

what I was most impressed about is your

department and you actually have small

cooling towers that you will test

different formulations whether you’re

looking at passivation or some other

item and you actually see how it deals

with the different metallurgies that you

have and the different cooling towers I

just think that’s cool yeah it’s great

we have we spent a lot of money here on

R&D whether it’s you know trying to gain

capacity of our Towers coolers or

condensers or it’s finding you know

passivation stuff that works in the

field or you know a pretreatment system

so yeah we spend a lot of time on R&D

yeah and I want to say one of the

conversations that I had with Chris and

this might have been 10 years ago where

he was saying one of the biggest factors

in passivation was heat load and before

that I never considered that but it

makes so much sense that if we’ve got a

hot piece of metal we’re trying to

passivate it it’s not going to be as

successful as if we didn’t have a heat

load on it and that has been a game

changer in the water treatment community

yeah that’s a great point because I’m

gonna go back to the University of

Kansas days I feel like I think it’s

when you took kinetics right I think

temperature drives the reaction Ford it

the same goes with the corrosion right

so the the hotter the temperature is the

more likely you’re gonna see that zinc

start to prematurely corrode off the

coil which then you’ll see us white rust

on it so being able to plan ahead with

the end user and get that unit installed

and start it up without heat load and

run water over it I mean that that’s a

huge advantage to having a successful

passivation

you know we what we see is we run into a

lot of last minutes

our girls so it’s like hey this units

going online loads going on it this

weekend immediately yeah yeah and then

you know and then it’s on the water

treatment professional to drop

everything and go out there and try to

save the day and that’s just I

understand like the frustration that

people get sometimes is it’s not fair so

we’re trying to educate our reps in the

end users that you know you’ve got to

have a passivation plan months in

advance everybody’s got to be on the

same page the last minute fire drills do

not work it’s too late at that point so

we’re trying to temper expectations when

that happens I mean also educating

everyone on the importance of planning

ahead all right we can spend the entire

episode talking about passivation and I

know it would be a phenomenal episode

but we’ve kind of already done that in

episode 37 so let’s get on to stainless

steel and we have a lot of different

flavors when it comes to stainless steel

so do you mind telling us a little bit

about those yeah when we’re talking

stainless steel from the evaporative

cooling and units side we’re talking

series 300 so the main elements and

series 300 are chromium and nickel from

the corrosion perspective so chromium

and nickel and so it’s a certain

percentage of the chromium and nickel

that makes up how much corrosion

resistance that stainless steel is so up

until about 2008 all the main players in

the evaporative cooling market from the

cooling tower side use 304 and 316

stainless steel and 2008 was when the

recession hit and at that time what

happened is nickel prices skyrocketed

and so when that happened one of our

competitors decided to try to find ways

to you know kind of cut costs or find

different areas where they could you

know still keep their profits and they

started supplying 301 stainless steel so

now when you talk stainless steel

cooling towers in the market you can

have anywhere from 301 stainless steel

304 or 3

sixteen so I’ll get into a little bit

what the differences are comparing 301

to 304 the main difference is 304 has

more chromium and nickel concentration

so what is the chromium and nickel do

the difference is with stainless steel

and does not require a passivation plan

when the stainless steel contacts air or

water it naturally forms a chromium

oxide passive layer on it so that’s why

it’s important to keep those surfaces

clean so the air or the water can

contact them and you get that chromium

oxide layer the nickel comes into play

that it helps strengthen that chromium

oxide layer so what it means is

generally is more chromium or nickel

more corrosion protection so then you

can also beef up even more the corrosion

protection by going to 316 stainless

steel so now what you’ve done with 316

is you’ve added molybdenum so that

tongue-twister of word which is always

fun when I explain this to customer

visits is having people say molybdenum

but us can kind of roll it off the

tongue what that two to three percent of

molybdenum and the 3/16 does it provides

chloride pitting protection so typical

areas that you see a 3/16 cooling tower

evaporative unit are coastal

environments right because you’re by the

salt water so you got high for IDEs or

areas where you have high chloride

concentration in the makeup water so

when you start cycling up that water

you’re gonna have high fluorides and so

your risk of chloride pitting or any

deposition that follows is higher so

there’s different areas where you know

beefing up to 3/16 is the right move and

I’m assuming there’s a big cost

difference from going to 301 to 3 or 4

and 3 or 4 to 316 yeah there definitely

is nickel really drives the cost of the

stainless steel

comparing 301 to 304 so you’re gonna be

you know a little bit more expensive I’d

say about 10% more three oh one two

three or four and then a little bit more

from 304 301 to 316 is the molybdenum

and it was before my days but we all

know that I never used it down in Austin

busy was outlawed but molybdate you know

as the corrosion inhibitor but I never

got to use it but it’s in 316 stainless

steel so you know that’s that really

drives up the price now occasionally

there’ll be an L behind one of those

numbers what does that mean L means it’s

a low-carbon stainless steel so a lot of

our units that we ship out have at least

stainless steel basins because that’s

where the water sitting so having more

corrosion protection where the water is

constantly contacting it is to the

end-users benefit so then you might see

a galvanized casing section or the the

lure the fill is up above and the fan

section that can be galvanized but

usually the basins are gonna be

stainless steel and what manufacturers

are doing now is they are welding the

basins so they weld the stainless steel

panels together and so the benefit of

using 304 L stainless steel is the low

carbon does not promote chromium carbide

precipitation so it’s a metallurgy term

where when you heat that stainless steel

you can precipitate some of that

chromium in that carbon and the steel

out and so then that leaves the weld

area a little bit weaker than the other

sheet metal so as far as the water

treater is concerned well we know that

there are welds and stainless steel we

need to be sure that that customer is

maintaining that power properly and

cleaning out the basin on a regular

basis yeah so the thing with stainless

steel you know you think Oh stainless

steel you know I beefed it up the

materials of construction you know I’m

good from a corrosion standpoint as I

mentioned right when when stainless

steel sees water it forms that TRO Miam

oxide layer right but when you start you

know running the tower and sucking in

the dirt the debris the leaves

you’re gonna start getting that sludge

buildup on the bottom of that basin and

when you look inside and you can’t see

the basin floor and it’s got a layer of

one inch mud sludge in there how are you

getting that water that freshwater or

even your water treatment chemicals in

that water to that basin that stainless

steel floor and so that’s what a big

thing with stainless steel is is you can

start seeing pitting corrosion because

you’re not keeping the stainless steel

surfaces clean and then a even goes into

the weld areas like the corners of the

basin you know we start getting that

buildup to those welds have areas you

know called crevasses so you can then

start seeing crevice corrosion which

will then look like little pits and the

in the corners and the sides of the

basin area so the big thing I’ve seen

since my time here with a Vasko is how

critical it is to keep stainless steel

basin floors clean I keep saying that if

you want to know about passivation go to

episode 37 but I’m gonna bring us back

to passivation again because now we’ve

got customers that are buying stainless

steel basins with galvanized bodies does

that type of system need to be

passivated that’s funny you asked that I

just had a phone call yesterday with a

end-user and our representative talked

in this exact same thing what we did our

passivation research it was primarily on

for a closed circuit coolers and

evaporative condensers with the

galvanized coil because that’s that heat

transfer surface right where you’ve

really where the money is and you want

to protect that coil inside the unit

that does not mean you do not need to

pass a date a unit if it has a

galvanized base in our gals a nice upper

section it’s just different because the

temperatures on a coil will be hotter

than the temperatures say on a on the

casing section the upper section of a

cooling tower or on the basin section so

it just depends that really it’s kind of

talking generally you got to test the

makeup water understanding where you are

with the makeup water to start to really

understand if you

just run water through that and kind of

naturally passivated but what we found

is natural passivation is not possible

if you’re putting heat load on that unit

I’m starting it up it’s not going to be

able to just run water over it but you

know some people don’t want to pay for a

passivation plan and so you kind of make

do you run lower cycles at the start to

try to keep the chloride concentration

down keep the pH between a seven and an

eight during that time which is very

difficult in certain areas if not

impossible so the passivation is

different we saw a metallurgical

analysis come back from a tower an open

cooling tower no coil in it and it had a

galvanized basin and a galvanized casing

section and it had a significant amount

of white rust on it and the white rust

was a concern right to the end-user this

high school they were concerned they’re

like well is that gonna how much is that

going to diminish the service life so

what this metallurgical company went out

and did was to kind of a codeine

analysis so they you know saw what kind

of the metal loss was and what they

found was they didn’t see too much of a

diminish in the zinc coating even though

there was you know a good amount of

white rust on that on that basin and on

those side panels so I guess my point

here is it is critical to passivate any

surface that is galvanized but when I’m

talking more passivation I’m talking

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