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foreign
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up Nation Trace Blackmore here and I’m
so excited because we are celebrating
industrial water week yes that’s right
it’s our favorite holiday it is the
holiday that was made just for us all of
those that serve in the industrial water
treatment industry and folks this is the
sixth time that we have observed this
holiday and this year is going to be no
different we are going to be your place
to celebrate industrial water week each
and every day of course we’re going to
start out today Monday with
pre-treatment tomorrow boilers Tuesday
cooling on Wednesday waste water on
Thursday and then we wrap up with
careers on Friday now if you want to
learn anything and everything about
industrial water week you can go to and
industrialwaterweek.com and everything
you would ever want to know is right
there at your fingertips as you all know
we love to celebrate this holiday and we
love to bring awareness to an industry
that is just so incredibly amazing I
cannot imagine what my life would be
like had I not become part of the
industrial water treatment industry I
definitely would not have this podcast
that’s for sure and maybe I would not
have been able to meet you and I have
met so many amazing people because of
this microphone that I have and the
podcast that my fine staff and I put out
each and every week that would just be a
travesty so I hope you have an entire
week of celebration in line for
industrial water week now we ask you to
do a couple of things in industrial
water week one make sure you’re telling
anybody and everybody who will listen
that we are smack dab in the middle of
industrial water week and if you’re
wondering industrial water week is
always the first full week in October so
you know that now we have to know what
to do well you’re already doing it
you’re already in this industry you’re
probably already talking about this
industry we’re just going to amp that up
we’re going to make sure that we theme
each day so we can celebrate all the
great things that we do in industrial
water treatment but we’re going to try
to get so many people excited about our
industry and interested in our industry
now as you know this is an industry that
not everybody knows about and it’s an
industry that if you don’t know about it
you’re probably probably not going to
get into it and I know that there are
some great people out there for this
industry that have no idea that this
industry exists so I’m hoping the theme
of this entire industrial water week
this year is that we are going to get
the word out about this industry and
we’re going to get everybody excited
about the potential that this industry
exists and maybe this is something
somebody wants to do there’s so many
younger people that are out there that
are in school that have just graduated
school that are thinking if they want to
go to school or not and they have not
even considered water treatment as a
profession because we just don’t have
that broader message out there that’s
the goal this week we are going to try
to change that now if you listen to
episode 317 that was Ron hetrick talking
about the demographic drought and I’m
sure if you have not said it you have
heard somebody say it’s just hard to
find new people well on episode 317 Ron
tells us why that is it is the most well
laid out explanation that I have heard
and I highly recommend that you listen
to that episode and share that episode
with somebody that’s doing hiring in
your company an earlier episode was
episode 300 and it was so great we had
him come back for the following week for
episode 301 and that was Chris Yee and
he was telling us about all the
wonderful things about working in this
industry and that’s Chris’s job is he
goes out and he tries to find people to
work in this industry and he talked
about how water treatment
allows everybody that we’re works and
it’s such a great work life balance that
all other jobs really don’t have so
those are some great episodes to listen
to to kind of prove why we’re theming
this the way that we are theming this
year is that we need to make sure that
people know about the water treatment
industry so we have generations of water
treaters to come and my ask for all of
you is wherever you are is to talk about
this industry to make sure that people
know that this is an option now
something else that’s going on today and
all through this week is the association
of water Technologies convention and
folks I’m so excited about that because
I am here right now and I am so looking
forward to seeing all of you that are
here at the association of water
Technologies conference be because maybe
I haven’t met you yet and I want to fix
that maybe we haven’t seen each other
since last year and I want to fix that
too and most of all I want to hear what
you think about this show if you have
any show ideas for me if you have a
guest that you want me to interview well
folks guess what that’s how we come up
with our episodes over 300 deep in
episodes we need your help to make sure
that we’re staying relevant and we are
talking about the things that you want
to hear from the scaling up H2O podcast
now we’re going to be doing some things
here at the association of water
Technologies conference we’re going to
do a meet up so stay tuned for all of
that we’re going to make sure that we
rock out the scaling up Nation at the
awt conference and Expo
Nation as you know each and every year
we bring back little pieces of
yesteryear that have helped shape this
podcast with great information around
the topics of the day so today we’re
going to look at pre-treatment and we
are going to bring back episode 35 yes
an early one and this is westburn back
in 2018 talking about reverse osmosis
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you mentioned pre-treatment what are
some examples of that
certainly every
nearly every RO system has cartridge
filters
located directly Upstream of the RO unit
as kind of a last resort filter to make
sure that debris and and larger
particles don’t get into the RO system
that might permanently plug the lead-in
membrane elements or possibly damage the
high pressure pump as part of that RO
system
beyond that it’s very common to have a
multimedia filter like a pressurized
multimedia filter as a means of reducing
the suspended solids in a water source
in cruder water source for pulling
directly out of a river or a lake we
might have a clarification system we
might have a cold line softening system
the particular pre-treatment of course
will have a lot to do with the quality
of the incoming water and how bad it is
for that RO system if we had to put it
into the iris system
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well that was a blast from the past
thank you again Wes always good having
you on the program and folks if you have
not read Wes’s book on reverse osmosis
it’s one of my favorite books written on
reverse osmosis well as I said this
week’s theme is all about spreading the
word that the industrial water treatment
is a great place to work even if you
have never heard about it so we’re all
going to go out and we’re going to try
to tell as many people as we can about
this industry so we can make sure that
we have people in this industry for as
long as this industry needs us and think
about that think about all the things
that we are able to do and see because
we work in this industry and think of
all the things the industry is able to
do because we are working there folks we
touch water which means water touches
almost almost every aspect of our lives
and without us doing what we do each and
every day we would have a very different
world and I think that’s something to
celebrate today we are celebrating
pre-treatment so each and every year we
ask you to help us with social media to
help make sure that we know the scaling
up nation is out there we get to meet
all of our brothers and sisters in the
scaling up Nation so here’s what I want
you to do I want you to take a picture
while you’re out today of your favorite
water softener your favorite reverse
osmosis whatever your favorite piece of
pre-treatment equipment is I want you to
take a picture with that piece of
equipment and hashtag it to hashtag
iww.23 once again that’s hashtag iww.23
Nation as I said at the top of the show
today is pre-treatment Monday tomorrow
is boiler Tuesday Wednesday is cooling
Thursday is Wastewater and we’re going
to wrap everything up on Friday with
careers well what we’re going to do like
we celebrate each and every industrial
water week is we’re going to bring our
friend James McDonald on for an
installment of detective H2O
foreign
the case of normalization
rain flooded off his black umbrella as
Herbert Henry oxidine Pi cwt stepped
outside a six-story building where he
rented office space a few minutes before
the PowerHouse chief operator Howard
Clyde myriadic 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 Aardvark stamping
Incorporated there are three 100 000
pound per hour coal-fired butter two
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 logbook 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 how 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 arrow is humming
right along and as you can see from that
log seat 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 foul and need
periodic cleaning it’s 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 in boiler fuel cost and water
costs I’ve worked with them for years
but they can be counter-intuitive 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 seat
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 cleaned this unit last October and
then late February but you wouldn’t know
about looking at the Permian flow no
changes at all are the membranes not
failing should I stop cleaning I
wouldn’t draw that conclusion yet let’s
see how variations and variables such as
pressure and temperature affect the
permeate flow it’s called normalization
and allows you to do an apples 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
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whipping out his hand cranked laptop
from his briefcase detective H2O
transfer the RO data into his
normalization worksheet copy down his
equations and updated the graphs
then he whistled
look what we have here Howard wow 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
Ro cleaning 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 sometime 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 RO now it’s been
over three months going on four
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 more on labor and chemicals for RO
cleaning than I have to either
this is a good plan detective H2O I’m
glad you’re on my side
I’m always on the side of why is water
decisions for both the customer and the
industrial water equipment
Now where’s that coffee
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in the underbelly and penthouses of the
Metropolis of Waterville where the
boilers percolate and cooling towers fog
there is one man who works tirelessly to
end corrosion stops scale fight low-life
microbes and conserve water that man is
detective H2O best water treater the
site of the Ohio solving water problems
drop by drop
foreign
I love those stories those are such a
great way to have fun and learn about
our industry I hope you share those with
some people that might not have heard
them James thanks for putting all those
together and Nation we’ve got a surprise
for you this week we have a brand new
detective H2O that we are going to
release right here during industrial
water week so you are going to want to
stay tuned each and every day so you do
not miss that Nation your job this week
is to tell everybody you can about how
awesome this job is get some social
media posts out there saying that when
you’re talking with customers make sure
they know how you feel about this
industry and maybe the people behind you
in that restaurant let them know what
you do and how awesome this industry is
whatever it is that you do that is your
job this week is to shout through the
rooftops that we are an industrial water
Trader it’s one of the best jobs out
there and maybe it’s something you might
enjoy
now for everybody in this industry I
would love if you would take a second
and think about somebody that’s really
helped you in this industry and write
them a thank you note I know that’s not
something that people do anymore I know
thank you notes are something of the
past but I have to tell you I still
write thank you notes and when I get a
thank you note nine times out of ten I
will keep them and a lot of times when
I’m having a bad day I will look through
my drawer of thank you notes and that
lets me know that I will get through
this and there’s a bigger purpose out
there and people appreciate the things
that we’re putting out there so I’m
asking you to help spread that if
somebody helped you let them know that
you are thankful for them write them a
thank you card and of course the other
thing to do is tune in tomorrow where we
will be celebrating boiler Tuesday have
a great industrial water week folks
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