The following transcript is provided by YouTube. Mistakes are present. To hear the podcast episode, click HERE.
TRACE: Hello Scaling UP! Nation and welcome to the special holiday edition of the Industrial Water Week celebration that Scaling UP! H2O is doing. And of course today, October 10th, it is Wastewater Thursday. Folks, I know a lot of us out there are doing waste water and we have a lot of questions around waste water however I have one particular question that founder James McDonald asked and I’m gonna be playing that in a second. And then wastewater expert Kevin Cope is joining us to answer that question. Folks, I’m curious, what are you doing to spread the word about Industrial Water Week? It’s the first time ever that we have had a holiday just for us water treaters.
Thank you James McDonald for doing that. But now it’s up to us to actually do something with that. I’ve got customers that are wishing me Happy Industrial Week because I’ve been talking about it so much. How cool is that? And you’re thinking “Oh my gosh Trace what are you talking to these customers about?” But you know one of my jobs is to make sure that people know about the Industrial Water Treatment industry. That’s my job as a podcast host. That’s my job as a water treatment company owner. So I hope you’re doing you part as well. And another fun fact, it’s actually my anniversary today. I had been married to Stacy Blackmore for 21 years. Folks, I got to tell you a lot of people lost that bet, they never saw it going more than a year. We brought about to 21 years and Stacy I know we’re gonna have 21 more. So thank you for 21 wonderful years and Happy Anniversary.
Folks, let’s get right to our guest. So join me as bring in Kevin Cope.
Well Scaling UP! Nation, in the true spirit of Industrial Water Week and celebrating the holiday, I’m not answering all these questions. Of course I’m bringing in experts that know exactly what these questions they’re asking for so you, the nation, can learn what you need to know from these listener questions. And today I am joined by Kevin Cope of Brenntag, North America. How are you Kevin?
KEVIN: Never better, Trace. Never better.
TRACE: Well Kevin, I know you’re a listener of the show and I really wanna thank you for that. And I wanna thank you for coming on this special holiday edition and talking a little bit about waste water.
KEVIN: My pleasure. My pleasure. Been looking forward to this since, since you invited me.
TRACE: Well let me ask you. What are you doing to celebrate Industrial Water Week?
KEVIN: Well I’m actually attending the Pittsburgh Chemical Day. I live in Pittsburg and I’m going down. Our president is actually speaking at Pittsburg Chemical Week or Chemical Day. I’m going down off and on for a few years so I’m gonna be attending that. Very much looking forward to that.
TRACE: Well, awesome. Well, let’s go and get right into it. We have a question from a listener. It’s James McDonald of course, the founder of Industrial Water Week. So let’s go ahead and see what he has to ask and we’ll see if we can answer it.
KEVIN: Alright let’s go.
JAMES: Happy Wastewater Thursday of Industrial Water Week. My question for today is what are some tips to ensure a Jar study mimics system conditions as closely as possible?
TRACE: Well James, thanks so much for your question. And of course, we are joined by Kevin Cope, wastewater expert. So Kevin, what do you think?
KEVIN: Well first it’s a great question from James. You know, he is… James is a great guy, well respected EWT so a little bit of pressure make sure I get this answer correct. So you know I thought about this question and one of the things I wanted to start out with was really kind of getting a background on a Jar test. I mean one of the things that we’ve seen over years is we always make a joke “Don’t run a Jar test, just don’t run a Jar test.” So really, before you start you really need to determine the purpose of you Jar test. What I am trying to do, again, don’t Jar test is the Jar test. We always like…
TRACE: Kevin, do you mind if a ask the question if, for the listeners today that’s just getting into wastewater or just knows what the term is, what is a Jar test?
KEVIN: Well, Jar test is where you take in you have a piece of equipment that actually has stirs. And most of us are familiar with called what’s called the ANF machine jar stir where there are four locations. And there stirs and they look very much like paint stirs and you can vary the speed. And as this rotate, you put your water in there, your waste water in there and then you add your chemicals accordingly and you observe what the floc looks like, what the clogging looks like, what’s settling looks like, what rise looks like. There are variety of different brands of these Jar stirrers but for most part people always think of these ANF 4-Drag gang stirrer for precision stirs. And usually you get clear glass of jars or square jars and you just observe. You put the appropriate oxygen and you observe what the flocculation or coagulation looks like. And they’re a great tool for the waste water group keeping waste water they really make a nice demonstration on what is exactly happening in the system.
TRACE: Kevin, I don’t know if I’ve told anybody this before but, of course, everybody know that my father introduced in to this business and I remember being with him when I was younger and he had his gang stirrer out and we were running some tests, of course I was watching he was running the test, but for years I thought it was called the “gangster”.
KEVIN: But I have heard them called “gangsters”. I mean, but I never thought of it as a “Gangster” Just never thought of that until now. It’s kind of funny. Yeah makes sense though but I mean people do call them gang stirrers, jar stirrers. You know my kids have seen me run jar tests since they were born. So you know, they, my kids, are well aware of what these things are. And they really are a stable within the wastewater industry. You know everybody has one. I have one in my garage that I get up periodically. They do a great job at demonstrating and really seeing what you’re getting when our doing coagulation, flocculation, or precipitation. Great great piece of equipment.
TRACE: So now that we know what a jar stirrer or a gang stirrer or , in my case, a gangster is, how do we make sure that we’re using it properly? How do we make sure we’re mimicking the system? But then as you were going in, how do we know we even need to use it? Or when is the best time to use it?
KEVIN: One of the things I always do when we do our waste water training class is one of the questions I always ask first in Jar Testing is what are you trying to do? Are you trying to remove Zinc? Are you trying to remove oil? Are you looking for better settling? Are you looking for an easier program? Are you trying to reduce cost? Those are some of the key, and many others, but those are some of the key questions that you really do need to establish before you run your Jar test. You know one of the things I always say is we can add inorganic Polymers to our bloomer phase and we’re not gonna precipitate Zinc with an inorganic Polymer. So you really need to ask the customer “What am I trying to remove?”, “What are my problems?” and those are really issues that are really keys to sending up a correct jar test, and as James has asked, to mimic what’s going on. So those are really keys. Well you know once you had that established, you know what you’re trying to do.
One of the thing I like to do is, you know, walk the system, or tour the system, see what it looks like, do a line diagram. I’m great for drawing line diagrams and phase on this one. You know, ask for swings in the application, you know, did they clean on a weekend? So therefore, Mondays are always bad. Did they run 24-hours a day? What are the contaminants? What are the degree of contaminants? Does it vary greatly or does it vary a little? You know, look for where the products are being fed, where are the current programs are being fed, how are they being fed, are they being diluted, or they neat, is the battery continuous operation, you know. And the key here, Trace, to me, is when I’m walking the system I always, always, always look for points that I can take samples and look at the water. And we’ll get into that later. But that’s really a key point for me is any system that I walk through I always look for if they’re adding a coagulant, is there somewhere after the coagulant is added that I can get a sample. And that’s really a key for me when I’m walking through a system.
And then, you know, you look at what are the products that they’re being used and understand the function. I start in this industry, this is my 40th year in wastewater treatment, and….
TRACE: Well congratulations! That’s amazing.
KEVIN: Thank you. Who would have thought I will make it past six months? But it’s 40 years in waste water treatment and when I started, I started with the chemical called Triolite. And it’s interesting the triolite started out they said Flocculation, Coagulation. Well coagulation is the actual creation if thin floc. Flocculation is the bridging of those pin floc. But Triolite refer to the flocculation as being the creation of pin floc and coagulation being the pulling of pin flocs together. You know, so to me it’s always understand the functionality of what you’re trying to do. Yeah, you need to have the correct terms but, again, if I still is a triolite it will be flocculation followed by coagulation. But now, you know, within our industry, it’s coagulation followed by flocculation. Coagulation being charged neutralization or creating pin floc and then flocculation, bridging the particles, making them larger and that’s what considered flocculation.
TRACE: Kevin, let me ask. There’s so many terms out there in the water treatment industry and now we are talking about wastewater terms. Is there a specific resource that you like to recommend people to go to to find out exactly what these terms are and to study more?
KEVIN: Well there is a, there is a manual through the AWT that we’re actually trying to maybe to rewrite but for the most part a lot of the terms are there. I was helped to reach to souls actually, author, among other people putting this together and there are terms and discussions in there on what these terms are. Again, I’m more on to the understanding the functionality. You neutralize charge first coagulation and then you bridge the floc second flocculation. But again there is a manual through the AWT and Heidi or Angela could help you get that manual. And there would be terms in there. From other things, you know, obviously over forty years I’m asked a fairly large librarius tentacle information and things among this life.
You know I will make another comment, Trace. The biggest change for me has been the internet. I use internet a lot especially when we’re looking at precipitating something that’s kind of unusual. And I’ll just Google it. That’s to me one of the biggest changes since when I started. We used to have this little book called The Cherry Book that we will constantly be looking to. How do you take out Zinc? What’s the PH for Nickel? But now, I mean, for me I go online and just say “PH Nickel” and I’ll find out what it is. So that’s to me where I use the internet a lot to give me an idea of terms, and how do I remove certain things from the water.
TRACE: Great advice.
KEVIN: With that all said, now it’s ready to jar test. So, one of the things that I’d like to recommend the folks is, this is from my old cal one days, take the samples yourself. You want you take that samples, you know what you’re getting, you’re looking, and you wanna make sure you don’t have any polymer in it. You wanna make sure that you’re getting it from the correct spot. I always ask the operator “Does this look normal?” It’s just more question I’ve always asked the operator “Does this look normal?” and if they say yes then I feel pretty comfortable. It’s not a hundred percent guaranteed but you know if they say “Ah you know, it’s a little crazy today.” You know, you might wanna start asking why with something done things with this line. So I take the sample myself and, again, I’ve already looked at all of the different potentials points. And I put that sample on my jar stirrer, gang stirrer or gangster, whatever. And just kind of look at it. See what it looks like, get an idea. Oh, another thing that I like to do if they’ll let you, I like to take pictures while I’m touring the plant. You know, take pictures of the floc size, take pictures of the clarity, look at the settling rate, look at the pin floc.
And if they let you take pictures, they’re great resource. Going back and looking, this is what it look like that day. And again, I made the comment, get a representative sample with no treatment. And then these are little keys that we always like to put out in the wastewater training class, if you’re wanna go testing a coagulant, you know, the charged neutralization, the pretreatment must have already been completed. In other words, you’re precipitating Zinc. The Zinc must already be precipitated before you run a coagulant. If you’re looking at a flocculant, the coagulation step must be totally complete before you do a flocculant. So think little piece in the back of your mind to remember. One of the things I like to do when I do a jar test is I like to, if they let us, you know, get a sample of the competitive product.
And I always like to get two samples. I like to take sample of the actual made down product right from the plant. But then if they give us a sample of the new product, make it down to where they perceive the delusion is being made down to. And while I’m going there is often times, maybe at the end of the shift, the guy has another hour to go and he’s supposed to wait until the last 15 minutes to make down the polymer, I gotta get out of here early so I’m gonna make it down now, which then starts to throw off the actual delusion rate because they’re doing batch. Or conversely, they forget to do it. And they wade the tanks totally, I’m thinking they made it down turned out the batches a little white. So I like to get the sample out of the delusion tank and test that to see what is going on. But then also make down a known quantity of the product so that I’ll know that what I’m putting in is the exact dosage rate. And then, you know, again, when you’re walking through, get a sense of what the program looks like. Try to mimic the plant. The one thing I like to do, Trace, is I like to test for chemistry first. Okay. When I do my initial jar testing, I get very little readings or thought about how much mixing is going on the plant. I like to look at the chemistry. I like refine my chemistry. And what I mean by that is if the chemistry doesn’t work, you can add the greatest mixing in the plant, it isn’t gonna work. So I typically , you know, focus in on my chemistry. And when I’m looking at that, I do take a look at the mixing, but at the same time I really look at the chemistry. And once I feel comfortable with the chemistry then I start, you know, I look at the plant itself. I look at the floc formation: How fast is it formed?
What are some of the non-chemical related parameters? Is there a long stretch between the mixing areas? Alright, now that we’ve decided that we like the chemistry that we’ve jarred test, that we feel comfortable with it, we feel that it will meet the needs of the customer, treats the water nicely, one of the things I’d like to do then is go out and estimate the mix time. And what I do there, remember commented about, you know, looking for sample point? I’ll go out and I’ll get samples from the actual plant. And I’ll put them on my jar stirrer and I’ll look at it. How big is the floc? What does it look like? How quickly did it settles? I may time the settling. It takes 30 seconds to settle, it takes a minute to settle. And now I’ll go back and I’ll rerun the test with the chemistry that I designed and work and I’ll try to mimic what I’m seeing in the system. Either mimic or do better than what I’m seeing in the system.
You know if they’re having problems with the settling and it takes maybe a minute to settle, I’ll start looking at polymers or flocculants that may make it settle more quickly. Can I settle in 30 seconds? Can I settle in 45? It’s really trying to mimic what they’re doing but also improve on that. So it really works well and I’m a big fan of doing that. Going out physically looking at the plant, looking at the system, and sampling those waters, those waste waters, those treated wastewaters to see what it looks like. So, that’s to me is the key in getting the question: How do I mimic it? Well, the way you mimic it actually look and see what it’s doing. And I’ve had a lot of success especially once we started the trial to actually take the samples out of the plant and say “This is what it was doing before. This is what it’s doing now. How do I do that? Why did it do? Why is it getting better?” Things on this one.
TRACE: Let me ask. How long does a typical trial lasts?
KEVIN: Let’s step back first, if you don’t mind. A typical jar test, and I wanna talk about that first if you don’t mind. A jars test we’ll like to recommend don’t just do it once. Do it a few times. Do it 2 or 3 times. And the reason you want to do that is I wanna make sure you’re getting a representative sample on a specific day. Alright? So, we wanna draw a jar test more than once. One of the time the customer may only give you one time to run a jar test and you take that. But to answer your question, how long does a typical plant trial take? It can really go anywhere from a week to several months, really depending on the size of your tower. Usually take a number of days just to get everything in place. Make sure your feed pumps are correct. Make sure you’ve cleaned out the previous chemicals from the lines. I seen too many times where the, you know, the line is supposed to be clean but it’s not and now you have a problem with plugage in the line. So do a real good job in cleaning the system before you start your polymer. But as far as that goes, that really can vary , Trace. I’ve had one that’s taken a day, I have one that’s taken several months. So that really depends on really the size of the account. We’ve looked at the system. We’ve got an idea how long things may settle by looking that thing. And now I wanna talk about what do I do now? I have an idea what the system is doing. I got my chemical figured out. Now, I wanna talk about how I jar test. What do I do to mimic the system?
TRACE: So Kevin, it sounds like at this point in time we’ve got our chemistries figured out. Now what?
KEVIN: Well, what I like to do is, you know, start again back looking at the non-chemical treatments. How much mixing? How much settling? Again, try to estimate the time. How long does it take to settle? Now, this has gonna become a little easier as you run more and more jar tests and you’ve observed more and more plants. You know, I can look at a plant and say “Boy, that is really good mixing.” Or “Man, that’s really poor.” I will say in my experience, we have gone a lot better in the wastewater industry over the last 40 years, getting better mixing within systems. When I started I mean mixing was the last thing people thought about when they put in systems. Nowadays, from what I’ve been seeing, you know we have the outliers but for the most part mixing has become very good within plants.
So now that I have my prim and program figured out, I just want to reiterate a very important point. Precipitation must occur fully before coagulation starts. And coagulation must occur fully before flocculation starts. So one of the thing I do when I do my jar test is I will start and I will start to refine, let’s say, the coagulation dosage. Is it 5, 10, 15 to 20. I get a sense of where that best dosage is at. I take a look, I turn the jars stir on and off very often looking at it until I feel very comfortable that the dosage, and not just for a sake this of discussions, say its 10 parts per million. What I’ll do is I will re-run that test at 5, 10, and maybe 20 or 15 parts per million of that product mixing what I think correlates to what the plant is doing and I will look at that. And I will make a determination.
10 is still the best with what I perceive as being the best mixing or adequate mixing or equal mixing to what’s in the system. So that to me is the key is once you come up with the dosage, go back and bracket it. Run lower, run the dosage, and run higher to get a good sense that this is what I’m seeing in the system. Obviously, you really wanna to see it better but you wanna make sure that you’re close or better than what they’re currently doing. I put a little note down here that you know back in the old days when we took pictures, when we’re allowed to take pictures, there was such a major difference between Fuji Film and Kodak Film. Believe it or not. You know the Fuji pictures always look greener than the Kodak and the joke always was “You use Fuji Film when you took jar test pictures because it made them look better.”
TRACE: For all the millennial’s listening, you’re gonna have to explain to them what a film actually is.
KEVIN: (Laughing) Good point. I tell you what, the joke, the jokes on photography is wonderful but this time when I was a student I was thinking about this I thought, man, I remember those days you wait a week to get the pictures back and just hope you took them you took them well. But it was just so funny, the difference between Kodak and Fuji Film. And then another key is is run side by side. Get the products that you’re currently using and used by your worst competitors and run them side by side. And look how close do they mimic what the system looks like. Again you’ve taking your samples out of the system, you’ve looked at them, you get a fill for floc size and now you sit there and you say “Okay, am I close to this? Am I better than this?” And those that really works well when you run side by side comparisons to look how well your program does compared to what they’re currently doing whether they’re using your chemistry and you’re trying to improve or using a competitor’s chemistry and you’re trying to prove that. And then you always wanna show the results to the customer. Either live or through photography. The one thing that waste water has over boiling or cooling is we have the ability to show our results instantaneously to our customers. And that is really one of the things that that I think sets wastewater apart is we we have the ability to bring someone balancing here’s what you’re doing, here’s what we can do for you. And I think that’s one of the things that really sets wastewater jar testing apart.
So those are kind of my fall processes. Key notes here is how do you mimic the system? Well you mimic it by looking at it. Getting an idea of what the floc size looks like, if you can take samples out of the plant, take the samples, look at them, time the settling, attentionally time how much mixing you have, but again the key is get an understanding when you walk through the plant what the floc size looks like. How quickly it settles in the clarifier or how quickly it rises in the DIF. Those are really key. And then try to mimic that in you jar stirrers by looking and saying “ Okay, the floc is this size.” And I put my polymers and my flocculants in and it takes 30 seconds get to that. Well if I go to a minute and a half, the floc, it’s quite to get bit bigger, but I probably only have thirty seconds of mixing in the plant. So those are kind of the thoughts that I have as far as how to mimic a jar test. It really does come with experience and time. You know, getting idea but then again as I said, I do think that we have gotten a lot better in this industry with the better mixing for the polymers.
TRACE: Well Kevin, I got to tell you. Forty years of experience, I’m sure you have this down to a science. And I wanna thank you. You took a very simple question and you took us on an entire thought process. And I’m gonna put you on the spot right now. Will you come back for a full Scaling UP! episode and we can talk about the complete process of how to do a plant survey, and what you do when you get back to your lab?
KEVIN: Oh I would absolutely love to do that. I would be honored, I would be honest to do. I enjoyed doing the wastewater classes for the AWT. I enjoyed the new people coming into our industry. You know, thinking, you know, where I was at when I was twenty-three years old. Sitting there wide-eyed like, you know, what is a, what is a gangster, I got to tell you that is funny. I’m probably gonna use that in the next training class. Yeah I know I would absolutely be honored.
TRACE: Well, awesome. Well, I’m going to schedule that with you and we’ll get you back on Scaling UP! And I wanna thank you for helping the Scaling UP! Nation celebrate Industrial Water Week.
KEVIN: Well my pleasure, Trace. I very much thank you.
TRACE: Scaling UP! Nation, I got to tell you one of the coolest things about hosting this podcast is being able to talk to all of the people out there that make industrial water treatment great. We have so much experience where people have started in the industry, like Kevin, forty years ago. And he’s had forty years to figure waste water out. You cannot read that in a book. Of course, there books out there and you can get started with that but there is no substitute for getting out there and asking the questions as you’re doing things. I’m gonna have Kevin back for an entire waste water show. We’ve already scheduled it so don’t worry about that, that’s coming out in the future. I know that you are going to love that. And of course, we’ve got one more day of Industrial Water Week. We’re gonna be talking about careers. And folks, obviously, you have some sort of affiliation in water treatment industry because you’re listening to this show or you just really like my voice. And I appreciate that. I know that there’s some people like that out there. I wanna make sure that you are spreading the word about how awesome it is to work in this industry. I’ll admit that it is not for everybody and I absolutely love the fact that I’m not tied to a desk every single day.
That I can go out to each one of our customers and none of them are the same. Of course, the relationships we build with the customers but always learning. Folk, I cannot think of a single day in water treatment that I did not learn something new. If you cannot say that, I don’t think you’re trying hard enough. And I want you to think about how do you make yourself better, how do you learn new things, and how do you validate that you’re doing that. I know you’re gonna have more fun if you do that on consistent basis and I know you’re gonna have fun with me tomorrow when we’re talking about careers in Industrial Water Week on a special holiday edition of Scaling UP! H2O. Talk to you tomorrow, folks.