The following transcript is provided by YouTube. Mistakes are present. To hear the podcast episode, click HERE.
[Music]
do you have a team without an hr
department or maybe your hr department
is someone who just got the job because
they were already in the office or maybe
you have a well-staffed hr department
and are just looking for outside
professional advice whatever the case
hrtg can help hrtg can help with
handbooks interactive training workshops
employee relations that include
resolving issues and answering questions
performance reviews and writing
compliance and policies
to simply put it they cover everything
from hiring to retiring do what you’re
good at and let hrtg do what they are
great at help you with your hr needs
go to
forward scalinguph2o.com
hr to find out more
[Music]
welcome to scaling up the podcast where
we scale up on our knowledge so we don’t
scale up our systems my name is trace
blackmore i am the host of scaling up
h2o
and nation i am so excited because just
around the corner
i am going to see so many of you because
so many listeners out there in the
scaling up nation are also members of
the association of water technologies so
if you practice the same area of water
treatment that i do you are most likely
a member of the association of water
technologies and if you are
you know what i’m getting ready to tell
you because the awt convention
it was online last year but it is in
person this year and i cannot wait to
attend it’s going to be september 22nd
through 25th
in providence rhode island
and folks i want to do something special
while i’m there i will announce that a
little closer when we air the episode
before
the convention so be listening for that
and we’ll probably be doing a meet up
but i don’t want to tell you everything
until we get a little bit closer trying
to build some suspense
the bottom line is if you’re not there
you can’t attend so you want to be there
how do you do that well two ways you can
go to our website where we post
everything for you
you don’t have to worry about taking
notes during this show because we’re
gonna have everything on the website
scaling up h2o.com
and we’ll have links for you to go
straight to awt but awt site is not hard
to remember it’s awt.org
either one of those places will allow
you to get registered so you can see me
and i can see you and we can just have a
great time another event that is coming
up for all you corrosion enthusiasts out
there
is that a thing well if it is you know
who you are
get ready
corrosion
technology week
yes that is the nace convention that’s
going to be happening october 18th
through 20th in houston texas
this event is all about the latest
standards products and services
all surrounding corrosion prevention
and mitigation
if you are somebody that deals with
corrosion
like all of us do an industrial water
treatment
check out nace by going to their website
and of course we will have that on our
website so you can click right over
there
now that’s in october and speaking of
october
october is the water treaters favorite
month of the year
why is that you might ask well it’s the
month that contains
the holiday
just for us
and to tell us a little bit more about
that here’s james mcdonald
[Music]
the fourth annual and duster water week
will be here before you know it coming
this october 4th through 8th now is the
time to start planning how you will
celebrate pre-treatment monday boiler
tuesday cooling wednesday wastewater
thursday and careers friday
some may still be asking why should i
celebrate industrial water week the
answer simple why not
only a select group of people understand
what we do but the modern industrial
world couldn’t exist without us helping
to safeguard water equipment energy
usage environmental impact and the
bottom line
we should be celebrated and we are with
industrial water week october 4th
through 8th
visit
industrialwaterweek.com to learn more
[Music]
nation how are you going to celebrate
industrial water week
well the scaling up h2o team is going to
help you out
by giving you a brand new episode
each and every day starting on monday
october 4th that’s my anniversary by the
way
25 years wow anyway that’s not what
we’re talking about we’re talking about
industrial water week so
with that
i can’t wait
i can’t wait to celebrate every single
day with you
what are you going to do for industrial
water week
you know now it’s time for
one of my favorite things and that is
answering questions from you
the scaling up nation
so here’s a question
hey trace
i was recently revisiting some of the
scaling up archives
namely some pinks and blues episodes
that focused on topics around
water treatment fundamentals like ph and
alkalinity one topic i thought would be
beneficial for for me and the nation is
an episode dedicated to cycles of
concentration
or concentration ratio
um you’re the host so i guess whichever
term you like better is the one you can
go with it’d be helpful to hear you know
ideas around how concentration ratios
are determined
in both cooling and steam applications
maybe why certain ratios are targeted
why is it important to our clients and
to us as water treaters
and in what ways are we able to
influence cycles of concentration thanks
in advance for the help
well caller thank you so much for that
question you know this is a topic that
most water treaters think is very easy
and i really want you to think about
whenever you think something is easy
it’s probably the hardest thing for you
to explain to somebody that does not
have the same common knowledge
that you do
einstein once said that if you cannot
explain something to a five-year-old you
don’t understand
the topic there’s so much wisdom
in that statement and i really think
when it comes to whatever we call it
cycles of concentration or concentration
ratio
there’s so much going on there we kind
of deal with it every day so we think
it’s simple
but when we explain that to somebody
that doesn’t understand it a lot of us
don’t do a great job
and let’s talk about the fact that we
have two different terms that explain
the same thing cycles of concentration
and concentration ratio or any time
where we have two terms to explain the
same thing
always
the issue and we’re going to talk about
that but first let’s talk about what it
is
the way i explain it is only pure water
evaporates leaving its solids behind
we cannot leave the device the cooling
tower the boiler to run dry
so we need to add more water to that we
call that makeup
well
that makeup
also has solids in it so in addition to
the solids that were left behind and the
water that we evaporated we’re now
bringing on additional solids with the
new volume of water that comes in to
that space
well as it evaporates it leaves its
solids behind and we start concentrating
how many solids are in the system
so knowing what that is i really think
that concentration ratio
explained
what we’re trying to say so i prefer the
term concentration ratio because it
explains
itself
what is concentration ratio well it’s
how many times the system has
concentrated itself
well now if i call it
cycles of concentration and i say well
what is cycles of concentration
if we define it that way somebody’s
going to say well it’s how many times
the water recirculates
i cannot tell you how many times
i’ve had customers think that that’s
what it is
even after we did some sort of
presentation
explaining what concentration ratio was
or cycles of concentration was
take it from me it’s so much easier to
use terms that define themselves
i think
concentration ratio makes your life a
lot easier
you know one of the ways it makes your
life easier is now your customer
understands why you’re doing some of the
things that it is
that you are doing
i know if you have been in water
treatment for any length of time you
have had a customer
shut off the bleed
of your cooling tower or your boiler
because they did not want to waste water
now if you don’t understand what we just
talked about that makes perfect logical
sense oh my gosh there’s water going
down the drain
water’s a valuable resource i must stop
that water from going down the drain
now for everybody listening we’re all in
the know because we understand that we
are diluting out that highly
concentrated water
with
lower concentrated water one times
concentrated water the makeup water
so we can use that water to its fullest
ability now when that customer thought
they were saving money saving water by
turning off that bleed
they now allow that system to over
concentrate
and we had that system set up so only so
many cycles
only so many ratios
would take place because we know
eventually certain ions are going to
come out of solution
and when they do they form scale
and we are all heat transfer efficiency
managers you’ve heard me say that on
previous podcasts and if we do not have
a clean surface
we are not going to be able to
efficiently transfer that heat from one
area to another that means the system
has to work harder that means we have to
spend more money buying electricity to
over compensate for that dirty system so
the three cents that our customers saved
on water probably cost them twelve
thousand dollars in extra
electricity and it’s going to take us
months to clean that off the system
all that to say when we are able to let
our customers know why it is we do what
we do
and explain to them the things that
they’re going to see around the
mechanical room because of the things
that we did
show them what’s normal explain to them
why we’re doing what we’re doing you’re
going to have less issues and if you
have less issues you have a happier life
you have a happier customer and you’re
going to have a long time customer so
all of that because we’re now going to
adopt the term
concentration ratio
well let’s go ahead and start with math
around
concentration ratio and of course in
order to do that we have to do a mass
balance a mass balance is a really fancy
way of saying
that water in equals water out
we have to put water in to the cooling
tower and that’s makeup and the water
that leaves the cooling tower we have to
replace
so it doesn’t run dry now how does it
leave the cooling tower well it leaves
in two different ways either evaporation
or bleed
now the same principles work with the
boiler as well but the equation i want
to share with you is for cooling
and boilers
actually it’s the same equation but you
go about getting them slightly
differently i’ll do that one on a
different show we’ll stick with cooling
today so here’s some math so if you guys
are driving
take a sip of coffee you know some
people instantly fall asleep whenever
they hear math i don’t want anybody to
put themselves in danger so if you are
one of those people that can’t handle
math and driving at the same time
please stop doing one of the two things
one driving or listening to this podcast
i’m going to prefer that you stop
driving because who would want to turn
this podcast off right
here we go the evaporation equation
is point
.001
times the recirculation rate
times the temperature differential
across the cooling tower
times a heat rejection factor all right
so one more time .001 times the
recirculation rate times the temperature
difference across the cooling tower
times a heat rejection factor and that’s
going to give you
evaporation in gallons per minute now
let me explain a few things here because
i want to define everything as we go
along
the first thing i gave you was point
zero zero one
well it takes
970 btus to evaporate a pound of water
we’re going to round that up be very
simple and we’re going to say it takes a
thousand btus
so 1 divided by a thousand that’s point
zero zero one that’s where that comes
from
next up is the recirculation rate now
where circulation rate is tonnage times
three
if you want an explanation on that
please go to episode 128 where i did an
entire show on tonnage times 3.
so the temperature difference across the
tower all that is is the difference
between
the
hot water coming in on the top of the
cooling tower
versus the water that has been cooled at
the bottom of the cooling tower whatever
that difference is
that’s the number and typically
by design that’s 10 degrees fahrenheit
and then finally there’s this heat
rejection factor
and that’s going to be different
depending on where you live here in
atlanta we typically use a 0.85 now
depending on if you’re in a wetter or
drier part of the country that is going
to change
probably do a whole show on that but i’m
willing to bet that your company has
those parameters set up
depending on where you’re working in the
world
now for fun when we do equations we’re
going to just use that at a hundred
percent
just so you can see the differences and
i know they’re going to be a little bit
different depending on what your area is
so that’s why i’ve decided to just use
that one factor
so let’s now do some math so let’s say
we have a thousand ton
cooling tower
and we went ahead and we measured and
the
delta t or the difference across the
tower is 10 degrees again 10 degrees by
design and we’re just going to use a
factor of 1. we’ll say that all the heat
is being rejected now keep in mind that
normally never happens but for this
example i just want to make it easy
we’re just going to leave that as 1.
so
essentially i’m setting up the equation
.001
times the recirculation rate which is
tonnage 1000 times 3 which is 3000
times our temperature differential
which is 10
times our factor which is one
if we do the math our evaporation is
going to be 30 gallons per minute
now how much is that per day well per
day we would just multiply our per
minute rate by
1440 the number of minutes in a day
and we get 43
200 gallons a day is what is being
evaporated
now let’s go ahead and calculate bleed
now the calculation for bleed very
simple it’s the evaporation that we just
figured out
divided by
whatever concentration ratio we are
running
minus one
why is it minus one because you always
have a volume of one
in the system
so if we were to do the math we would
have uh 43
200
divided by
and whatever the concentration ratio is
minus one so if we were running a
once-through system
then what that would mean
is we were also bleeding 43
200 gallons of water
so our makeup has to be double that and
that means that our thousand ton cooling
tower
will be making up 86
400 gallons
so as we can see that is a lot of water
and that’s why we don’t do a once
through
system
so normally
that allows a water treatment
professional like you to come in and
figure out all the things that are in
the water
which ones are going to scale first
which ones are going to precipitate
first
and
that first precipitating ion however
many times you can concentrate that up
that’s going to be what’s called your
limiting factor
so let’s say for example it was silica
and we can only concentrate silica up
four times typically we use a 150 as the
top range of silica
we’ll say it has 50 ppm in there we can
only concentrate that up three times
well we probably don’t want to test that
limit so we’re probably going to back
that down a little bit and that means
that our top concentration ratio is
going to be two point something whatever
you feel comfortable with and we
probably have a polymer in there to help
us with silica i don’t know if that was
the best example or not but i think you
get where i’m going whichever
ion we’re going to get to first that’s
going to be our limiting factor
so with that it’s very important for us
to understand what it is that’s going to
be our limiting factor how many times we
can concentrate it up and is there
something we can treat that limiting
factor with for example if it was
calcium
then maybe we can soften the water and
now we can get a higher concentration
ratio maybe we could use a special
product to extend
how much that specific ion can stay in
solution and now we can concentrate the
water up higher
so every time
we graduate to another concentration
ratio
we are saving some water and let’s look
at that so if we were a once-through
system
going from one to two
well that is a 50
savings
on
water and how do you figure out how much
water you’re bleeding
it’s really simple it’s the reciprocal
of whatever your concentration ratio is
so if i’m at a concentration ratio
of
three
i would just do one third
of the evaporation and that will allow
me to figure out how much water i am
bleeding out now i got this question at
one of the math events
that i do for awt and somebody wanted to
know well how was evaporation changed by
how many times you concentrate a system
and evaporation does not change that’s
the constant through all of this
what changes
is your bleed and that gets me to make
up so makeup
equals evaporation plus the water that’s
bled out of the system and hopefully
through the demonstration i just gave
you
you can see
that the higher you concentrate the
water up the least amount of bleed that
you are having and logic dictates that
the more you can concentrate up the
system the world is happy the sun is
shining rainbows are out birds are
singing we just concentrate that sucker
up as high as we can go because we’re
saving water well here’s the thing
remember i just mentioned the reciprocal
so
concentration ratio
under one
with that
if you do the math
one-half is huge that’s the largest
amount that we’re ever going to get well
one-third that’s still a lot of water
one-fourth that’s a good amount of water
one-fifth one-sixth one-seventh
one-eighth
okay
one-ninth
not that much movement between eight and
nine
between nine and 10 even less and higher
than that
there is such a minute savings in water
when you start pushing the limits up
that high
normally it is not worth it because what
you’re doing is you are concentrating
things up so high
you’re probably really stressing the
system out
some of the products you have may not be
able to keep all those ions into
solution
but something that’s happening that a
lot of people don’t realize
is you are creating such a viable food
source for all of these bugs all these
microorganisms to come in
and have a buffet in your system
you’re really going to diminish your
heat transfer capacity because now
you’ve got organic fowling throughout
your system now maybe you can offset
that with a bunch of biocide but is that
worth it
and how much is that biocide costing
versus how much are you saving in water
now maybe there’s a reason to do that
you’re the professional water treater
that’s on site out there you can answer
that a lot easier than i can because you
have first-hand knowledge of what you’re
trying to do
but if you’re just doing that to try to
save water
you’re probably not saving the amount of
water that you think and you’re
definitely making it so incredibly
difficult for you to control the
organics in that system
you know something you might be
wondering after that conversation is how
do i verify that things are staying in
solution
and i’m going to be honest some things
are easier than others to work a ratio
out so just like
we did a ratio with concentration
we can do that with the water that we
start with versus the concentrated up
water and see how many times in theory
it should have concentrated up now a lot
of us do that with chlorides chlorides
is a non-scaling ion and we will take
the chlorides in the raw water
and we will take the chlorides in the
concentrated up tower water and we would
divide one into the other and
whatever that equals that will tell us
how many times we’ve concentrated up
that water
now a lot of us are using chlorine
sodium hypochlorite well chlorite sounds
like chloride so that’s going to
interfere with that test
so you might not be using that so
something else you might be doing is
maybe you’re doing hardness
you’re looking at the hardness in your
raw water and then you’re looking at the
hardness in your concentrated up water
and you’re seeing what the ratio is
between those how many times have you
concentrated that up
now if you’re softening that well of
course you can’t do that either well
here in atlanta
we normally don’t have a silica problem
we do have some wells that have some
higher silica but we use silica nine
times out of ten to determine what our
concentration ratio is
so we will take the silica in the raw
water we will take the silica in the
concentrated cooling tower water we
would divide those out and we would find
that we have a concentration ratio of
x and in atlanta it’s normally around
eight or so
well if we were to determine that let’s
say for example’s sake that it was eight
well we should in theory find that every
ion that we test should be eight times
that from what was in the raw water that
is now in the concentrated system water
so if we were to do chlorides and
chlorides was able to work properly
because we weren’t using chlorine we
should find eight there too
if we were to do calcium and we weren’t
doing
a water softener we should find eight
there too now in theory we should be
able to do the same thing for alkalinity
however you are going to lose some
alkalinity across the cooling tower
don’t believe me take a sample from the
incoming tower water and the leaving
tower water
and you will find that there is a slight
difference so when you start
understanding
all the different things that you’re
supposed to be keeping in solution
and then you start running ratios to see
if you’re actually keeping those things
in solution
you don’t have to guess what’s going on
in the system you can actually prove
what’s going on in the system so let’s
say
i had that let’s use 10 i don’t know why
i used 8 and most of us probably can’t
get as high as 10 but it’s easy math and
let’s face it you guys are driving we
need some easy math so let’s say you
have a calcium hardness of 10
and you can concentrate that up 10 times
and let’s say we’ve done that we’re
going to expect to have a hundred parts
per million of calcium hardness in the
system water
and we verified that there are indeed 10
concentration ratio in that system
well let’s say
it comes back and it’s 60.
what’s going on there
well if we’re getting less if it’s just
a little bit less
it’s probably just because things change
throughout the day it hasn’t always been
10 maybe it was 9.8 at one time
so things change a little bit if it’s
slightly off i wouldn’t worry too much
about that i would run some other tests
to confirm that but for all in all you
don’t worry about slight changes but
let’s say it’s supposed to be 100 now at
60. most likely that is telling you
that one somebody installed a softener
on the system and you didn’t know about
it
two
you are losing that somewhere so it’s no
longer dissolved in the system and
that’s what’s happening when you do a
test you are testing dissolved solids
well something precipitated out it’s not
dissolved anymore that’s why you can’t
test for it
where did it go
well in that case i would test your
alkalinity as well
i’m pretty sure that’s going to be lower
than it should be even with the cooling
tower phenomenon that i just mentioned
where did it go you formed calcium
carbonate and that is a telltale sign
that you have scale
in the system
let’s look at the inverse of that let’s
say you test it and it’s now 150
so we’re getting a concentration ratio
of 15 on calcium hardness but we’re only
running a concentration ratio
of 10
in actual
what’s going on there well we figured
out we had a problem we fixed the
problem and now we are redissolving
calcium carbonate back into the water
we’re dissolving that and there’s the
proof and in that situation you’ll
probably have a higher alkalinity as
well
so think about it you’ve got all the
tools in your tests that you need to
figure out what’s going on in the system
if you know what tests you have and you
know how to run those tests and what
they are telling you
you can apply that to your concentration
ratio knowledge and have deeper
knowledge within the system
and nation there are so many things out
there to try to conserve water
you’ve probably seen some things that
people are doing perhaps you’re even
maintaining some of these things what
are these things well you might see
reverse
osmosis on
cooling towers and what they’re trying
to do they’re trying to reduce the
amount of solids that we start with so
we can continue to concentrate that
water up
a lot more than if we were just using
regular city water as the makeup
you might see electric deionization
they might be using some sort of
deionizing
maybe there’s a resin bed in there i
mentioned earlier water softening so
there are all these different things
that we can do to reduce the ions that
are going into the water so we can
concentrate them up more the bottom line
is there’s only so much water on the
planet i’ve said this on the show before
but in the united states we are so
incredibly fortunate that we never have
to worry
about turning a faucet on and if water
is going to flow out of it a nation
there are many parts of the world where
they don’t even have a faucet
they have to walk
i think the average is six kilometers
they have to walk
to and back to get drinking water so
think about how fortunate we are in this
country or in other parts of the world
not everybody is that fortunate so as an
industrial water treater we have a duty
to protect all the water that we have on
this planet
and to make it so it is as easy to find
as easy to use as possible and when we
can reduce the amount of treated water
that’s coming to us in the systems that
we’re responsible with treating
we can make a dramatic impact
a huge impact i would argue that the
industrial water treater can save more
water than pretty much all the other
professions combined we have a
tremendous opportunity here now you
might be thinking trace we’ve got the
same amount of water on this planet
as we did when this planet was made and
you know what you’re right
and if you were to look at this planet
you’ll probably also say trace there are
two
thirds the amount of water on this
planet to the one-third of the amount of
land that we have on this planet so how
could we possibly have a water shortage
well when we look at the water that’s
readily available to us
that two-thirds of our planet that is
water
it’s water that’s not readily available
so it means that we have to do something
to it and most of the water is in the
oceans and desalination
takes a lot of equipment it’s very
expensive and there’s a lot of waste for
every good gallon of water that we make
not to say we can’t do it but it doesn’t
fit our definition of readily available
so if we look at all the water on the
planet
most of it’s in the oceans and then the
fresh water that we have most of that is
in areas
that we can’t get to or it’s very
difficult to get to
so if we were to look at all that water
on the planet less than one half of one
percent
is really the amount of water that we
have that’s readily available to us
we’ve had that same amount of water
since the beginning of our planet but
what has changed is how we use water
we are using water in every single
process that we have and we’re using it
more and more every single day so when a
profession like ours is able to really
be responsible with the amount of water
that we use and how we send that water
back
to get recovered we can truly make an
impact and when we understand basics
like concentration ratio and the
different ions
that we need to look for to prevent
scaling in a system
what we can do
to extend the solubility of those ions
so we can use that water even more
and then we explain to our customer how
we’ve done all those things
and what a normal operating condition
looks like in their mechanical room
we’re all working together and we are
making sure that there’s enough water to
go around
i want to thank that caller for this
question i got to tell you when i was
doing notes answering this question
there are about 40 other things that i
want to talk about but this is an hour
or so long podcast i try to keep them
around an hour or less
so
i have so many other things to cover
with this and with me saying that you
have so many things to explore
around this i know some of these things
i said you probably already knew i’m
hoping some of the things i said got you
thinking about what you do on a
day-to-day basis and you’re thinking wow
i can probably explain that a little bit
better so the customer understands what
i’m doing the customer understands my
value better
but then i can also explore ways that i
can do better so whether it’s one or all
of those i hope i inspired you to do
something and speaking of inspiration if
this guy doesn’t inspire you to go one
notch further i don’t know what’s going
on here’s james
[Music]
hello scaling up nation the next james’s
challenge as we grow as an industrial
water treatment professional drop by
drop is
[Music]
ask a colleague to audit your water
systems
we can all be too close to a topic and
miss glaring errors right in front of
our faces
it can also take a level of bravery to
suck in our pride and ask for help but
if you have the opportunity to do this
having a second set of eyes on your
water systems can be a win-win for
everyone
be sure to share your experience on
linkedin by tagging it with hashtag jc21
and hashtag
scalinguph2o this is james mcdonald and
i look forward to seeing what you share
nation this is one of my favorite things
to do and i’ve made a career out of this
i consult with other water treatment
professionals and one of my favorite
things to do is play a game called let
trace blackmore steal your business it’s
all fun it’s all make-believe but what i
do i don’t actually steal the business
but i do go in
as if i were and i look at all the
things that should be done differently
and basically find all the cracks in the
account and then let the person who
brought me in
know what those are
we work together so they can fix all
those items and i will tell you the
truth sometimes those items they fully
are aware of and they’ve talked to the
customer about but the customer does
nothing now nation
i know that you have lost a piece of
business because you told a customer
that they needed to fix something
they didn’t fix it and then a competitor
came in said the same thing maybe even
they gave away a little bit of equipment
to help them fix it and now you lost the
business
so don’t let that happen to you ask a
colleague what are they seeing that you
don’t see maybe it’s something that you
saw a long time ago and now you’re
immune to it and if it’s something like
that maybe you two can brainstorm and
figure out how you can speak to the
customer so they understand why they
need to change it and now
they’re actually motivated to make a
change
by the way when customers don’t change
something you want them to change it’s
because they don’t understand why and
the pain of changing it is greater than
what will be relieved if they fix the
issue
that means you didn’t explain it right
if it pains you and it doesn’t pain them
just like how we explain concentration
ratio
you need to explain that issue
differently so they can feel the pain
just like you do and i promise if you
learn how to do that
they’re going to fix that issue and
everybody’s going to be happier you know
another thing that would make me happy
is for you to tune in next week for a
brand new episode of scaling up h2o take
care everybody
[Music]
scouting nation life is too short to do
it alone and that’s why i have been in a
mastermind for over a decade it’s why i
started the rising tide mastermind and
it’s why the rising tide mastermind is
so successful you do not need to face
your problems alone you don’t need to
face your issues alone you can learn
from others experiences so you don’t
have to repeat their mistakes and you
can get further faster because others
are giving you a hand to find out more
go to scaling up h2o.com forward slash
mastermind to see if this is the right
group for you