How Hazardous the use of Chemicals is for the Chiller & the Cooling tower ?

1. High blowdown problem – Cooling towers use water for evaporation. Large particles remain after the evaporation occurs and this causes a blowdown. When the blowdown occurs in the cooling plant, the chemicals are lost along with the solid waste. If the cooling tower requires more blowdown, then the water treatment may not be right.

This can be corrected using better water treatment that removes scale forming in a positive way. You can also manage the cooling system program to reduce the chance of blow down due to chemical use. The problem of blowdown also occurs in chillers at most times.

2. High costs – The treatment of cooling tower through chemicals can incur high costs. This includes the upfront planning costs and maintenance costs. It includes the installation rates too. The cost also includes maintaining the normal makeup and registry of the cooling tower system.

The plant also incurs system discharge fee cost. Use of chemicals in the plant ups the cost to a great extent. If you use non-chemical treatments, then you can save on your costs as well. There are many non-chemical treatments available for cooling towers and chillers, choose according to your budget.

3. Health risks – It’s not easy to maintain a cooling tower. Use of chemicals can also put a person working with the tower to health risks. Use of chemicals can cause many respiratory and breathing problems. The contaminated water and chemicals can also cause problems with lungs. Most people who work near the tower also face the risk of Pontiac fever.

It’s best to avoid the use of chemicals in cooling towers and chillers to avoid the health risks. Natural treatment will ensure that there is no such health hazard. This will not only make the working safe but also secure. There will be no health risk associated with natural ways. 

4. Water wastage (Bleed off) – The water that circulates around the tower has four times the concentration that makes water cycle operational. Bleed off is the normal process of removing one portion of concentrated water which is then replaced by the normal water. The chemical based water is subject to bleed off most of the times.

A normal cooling tower can bleed off up to one million gallons of water in a year. The water wastage causes other problems as well. Thankfully, there are conservation solutions that can stop bleed off to a large extent. You can opt for a cooling water conservation plan for this purpose.