159 Transcript

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scale it up nation trace blackmoore here

happy industrial water week

each and every year we celebrate as

industrial water treaters together

that we have this fantastic job

it’s hard to believe that everybody

doesn’t want this job

but it’s good for us that they don’t

because we know how awesome it is

and we are going to bring that

awesomeness

this week to industrial water week

now this week is going to be like other

celebrations where we have had in years

past for

industrial water week but we’re gonna

add

a few different things to keep it fresh

and this week we are using hashtags

folks i want to make sure

that we’re not just listening to the

scaling up h2o podcast

we are actually calling ourselves to

action to do something to celebrate and

we are going to share that

with the scaling up nation and with all

the other industrial water treaters in

the world

so please hashtag iw20

what you are going to do to celebrate

this week i want to try to give us a

challenge every so often this week

so we can remember to hashtag some

photos some videos

anything that reminds us to just

celebrate

that we are so happy to be

industrial water treaters you know

something that makes me

happy as an industrial water treater in

the field that

i am in is i just experienced

the association of water technologies a

virtual

convention last week and got to see a

lot of you

on our virtual hangs each and every

evening of the convention

and folks that just got me started for

this week i know

you’re gonna have a lot of fun this week

one of the coolest things i got to do

last friday was i got to announce

that i am this year’s recipient

of the association of water technologies

ray baum memorial water technologist of

the year award folks that is so

incredibly humbling to me i want to

thank all the people out there that

nominated me

so thank you so much for that my message

on friday was who is going to get this

award next year and why can it not

be you so what are you doing for the

industrial

water industry how are you making the

industry

better and then when it’s all said and

done

when you move off to whatever career

number two is

or retirement or whatever that is what

can you look back to say

yes that was my mark in making the

industrial water

treatment industry better and folks i

can’t think of anybody

else that has put such a great mark on

the water treatment industry than

founder of this great holiday james

mcdonald so it’s only

fitting that the founder of our

great holiday week we will open our

ceremonies

with james mcdonald hello scaling up

nation

this is james mcdonald and i want to

wish you all

a happy industrial water week while most

people have no idea that industrial

water treatment is even a profession

or what it is we know what we do as

industrial water treatment professionals

is special it’s rewarding it puts food

on our tables

and helps the world do the same it

matters

it should be celebrated and with this

third annual industrial water week

it is i look forward to hearing what

trace’s

scaling up h2o podcast has to say this

week

and i especially look forward to what

you do and share on social media

please share pictures of what you’re

doing that day share stories

share articles share selfies of you in

the field or the office

share funny commentary about what your

family and friends think you do

let others know this week is about you

don’t forget each day has a theme

pretreatment monday boiler tuesday

cooling wednesday

wastewater thursday and careers friday

lastly remember to tag your post with

hashtag industrialwaterweek

or hashtag iw20sn20

happy industrial water week everyone

james

thank you so much for not only creating

this holiday

but helping me make this year

the best celebration we have had so far

i’m a little worried to think about how

we’re going to top this next year but

let’s face it that is

next year’s problem so i thought

something that we would add to our

celebration

is a little industrial water treatment

jeopardy so folks get your thinking caps

on because here come

a few questions to see how well you

score on this monday’s topic

pre-treatment when samples are taken

from a water softener

usually specific gravity over the entire

backwash cycle it is called

this

what is an illusion study

this is the most common name given to a

filter that uses

a silica type substance for its media

[Music]

what is a sand filter

this is the device in the bottom of a

sand filter that keeps the sand

from leaving the vessel

what are the laterals this is the volume

of a solution

passing through a certain quantity of

resin within a given time

what is flow rate the solution which

emerges from an ion exchange column is

called this

what is effluent this is what we call

loss of resin through abrasion

what is attrition well folks i hope you

enjoyed our first installment of

industrial water treatment jeopardy

hopefully you score

high tomorrow you’ll get another

opportunity

nation on episode 97 i interviewed

brian hayward on filtration

of cooling towers when we think about

pre-treatment and that’s what we should

be thinking about this pre-treatment

monday

pre-treatment is anything that we

do before our regular most likely

chemical treatment well brian was so

gracious to come on the show and talk

all about what we should know about sand

filters

when it comes to putting them on a

cooling tower

so i want you to go to episode 97 if you

have not listened to that episode in a

while

and think about what you can do

to add pre-treatment to take out

all the solids to your system before

they get in the system and now you have

to deal with them

think of pre-treatment as the insurance

policy to take out all the stuff before

it gets in the system so we can really

focus on what the core

water treatment issues are which is

control of corrosion control of scale

and control of microbial all the dirt

and debris if we can filter out

if we can keep out of the system that

just

makes our job doable and without

having some sort of filtration on each

and every system

that we treat it makes our job

darn near impossible so what are you

doing on each and every system to help

your system be pre-treated before it

goes to

your normal treatment program

nation as you know james mcdonald is

extremely talented james does

some voice over work you might hear him

if you

listen to certain star trek podcasts he

does some of the evil villains

well he has also created a character

to help the water treater learn

through story now james’s character is

called

detective h2o and he is going to join us

with a little story so if you guys will

please

welcome detective h2o

welcome to detective h2o the case

of normalization

rain flooded off his black umbrella as

herbert henry oxidane

picwt stepped outside the six-story

building where he rented office space

a few minutes before the powerhouse

chief operator

howard clyde muriatic had phoned

on the third ring the water detective

answered

detective h2o here the best water

treater this side of the ohio

solving water problems drop by drop what

you got

detective h2o we need your smarts over

here at

aardvark stamping incorporated this is

howard

we’ve got this reverse osmosis system my

crew records a lot of data on it

we just have no idea when to clean it my

guys are good with the books see

lots of practice from their

extracurricular activities

if you know what i mean we just don’t

know what to do with this ro data

when should we be cleaning the ro we’ve

been guessing

putting our fingers in the air and just

guessing

i’ve been meaning to come up to your

neck to the woods for a while now howard

i’ll start my old ford and be over as

fast as it can coast there

it’s mostly downhill crack open the

checkbook and save me some coffee

dodging the raindrops detected h2o

marched from the guard shack to the

powerhouse at hardbark stamping

incorporated

their three 100 000 pound per hour

coal-fired butter tube boilers

lined the main aisle with the operator

room on the far side

as he searched for howard the water

detective took a moment to look through

the log book

everything appeared to be in order with

regular testing and no notable events

with the water treatment equipment

during the last few weeks detective h2o

took a moment to chat with the on-floor

operator he found sitting in front of

the boilers with his feet propped up

ox it’s been a while have you been

oh not bad barney not bad at all don’t

bother getting up

how about you and things around here i’d

complain but nobody would listen

things around here have been going fine

we finally rebuilt some of the valves on

software number two a few months ago

but she’d been eating her tires kicked

for an embarrassingly long time

sounds good is howard around he called

me about interpreting the ro data

howard’s around here somewhere i’ll call

him on the radio and have him meet you

at the ro

you’ll find log sheets to the right of

the units detective h2o

made his way to the ro observing the

flow rates pressures

connectivities percent recovery

temperature

run times etc as he listened to the unit

run

it was filling up the permeate storage

tank and at first glance

things looked good the data on the log

sheets only went back a month and didn’t

show anything obvious

a more thorough look at the data would

tell the real story though

detective h2o thanks for coming as you

can see

the ro is humming right along and as you

can see from that log sheet you’re

holding

my crew is good at keeping the books we

completely guess

when to clean it though the permeate

flow rate is relatively constant

but i know these things do file and need

periodic cleaning

is cleaning every three months really

necessary though or should we clean more

or less frequently

i’ve got no idea i see your problem

howard

reverse osmosis systems are a great

technology

they can save a ton of money and boiler

fuel costs and water costs

i’ve worked with them for years but they

can be counterintuitive when

interpreting their data

changes in pressure temperature

dissolved solids percent recoveries

and so forth can make just eyeballing

the data impossible

they can work against each other to make

what seems like a good trend

into a hidden disaster do you have the

rest of the data

we should go back several months to see

what’s been going on

i’ve got better than that detective i’ve

been entering it into a spreadsheet

grab that log sheet hang in there and

we’ll put that data in too

when howard fired up his computer and

entered the most recent data

a clear story still did not show look at

this detective

the permeate flow rate has been steady

for the past year

very steady i start getting nervous when

it runs for too long between cleanings

we clean this unit last october and then

late february

but you wouldn’t know it by looking at

the permeate flow no changes at all

are the membranes not fouling should i

stop cleaning

i wouldn’t draw that conclusion yet

let’s see how variations in variables

such as pressure and temperature affect

the permeate flow

it’s called normalization and allows you

to do an apple’s apples comparison of

the system

with the membranes you have today

perform as well under the same

conditions as when they were installed

normalization uses mathematical tricks

to take the membranes back in time

to answer exactly that question we’ve

been comparing apples and oranges up to

this point

let’s dump your data into this

normalization spreadsheet i developed

based upon astm standards and advice

from membrane manufacturers

let’s see if this data sings like a

canary

[Music]

whipping out his hand cranked laptop

from his briefcase

detective h2o transferred the ro data

into his normalization worksheet copied

down his equations

and updated the graphs then he whistled

look what we have here howard well

that’s a horse of a different color

detective

looks like you’ve taken the blinders off

yes

you see as a membrane fouls it takes

more pressure to force the water through

the membrane

counter-intuitively as temperatures

increase water passes through the

membrane more easily

these and other factors can make

non-normalized data look just fine

but as you can see in this graph of

normalized permeate flow

or npf it doesn’t look fine at all

look at these increases in october in

late february

those would be your cleanings rl

cleanings should be done based upon

analysis of the data like we’re doing

here

some rules of thumb of when to clean is

when the normalized permeate flow

decreases by 10 to 15 percent

normalized pressure drop increases by 15

percent

and or normalized salt passage increases

10 percent

some membrane manufacturers may have

slightly different recommendations

but these are a good place to start

cleaning too frequently isn’t

necessarily good for the membranes

just like waiting too long can be bad

for them as well

this is great detective h2o how have we

been doing then

it looks like you probably waited too

long between cleanings when you did the

october cleaning but the membranes

appear to have recovered well

then when you cleaned again in late

february you probably cleaned a little

too early

it may have gone another month or so

before the data would indicate the

optimal time to clean

how about now is it time to clean now

looking at this normalized data

i’d say things are actually holding

steady barney said you fixed up software

number two

was that some time around or after the

last cleaning

you know now that i think about it yes

it was the beginning of march that unit

was prematurely hard for

longer than i’m willing to admit but

should we clean the arrow now

it’s been over three months going on for

shouldn’t we clean i’d say no clean this

ro based upon the normalized data

and the data says the ro is not fouled

enough to clean

i’ll leave you a copy of this

normalization spreadsheet to keep

logging your data into

you can email it to me periodically to

take a glance over we’ll make the

decision together

that makes me feel a lot better the

budget is tight around here at aardvark

stamping incorporated

the longer i can go without buying new

membranes the better

on the flip side i don’t want to spend

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