Freshwater is an essential resource for everyday life. Although water covers 71% of the earth’s surface, only 3% is freshwater, and just 1% of this freshwater is usable. With the growing demand for water, sustainable water management is more important than ever. This means using freshwater in a way that meets current environmental and economic needs without compromising the ability to meet those needs in the future.

“Smells like money” is what you often hear as you walk into a rendering plant, normally accompanied by the speaker taking a deep breath. To the uninitiated, the smell is nothing like the paper bills in your wallet. It is a deeper richer smell - much like the inside of a pet food bag. More than the smell of "money," it is the smell of recycling and sustainability.

The rendering industry is the original recycler, transforming waste materials from farmers, restaurants, food producers, etc. into products for pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, animal feed, renewable fuels, and more. The process of converting this material into proteins and oils is accompanied by vapors that create odors, environmental concerns, health hazards, and damage to equipment and facility infrastructure.

Steam boiler systems are complex with not only the physics of the mechanical side to worry about but the chemistry of the water side as well. There are many problems that can occur that will impact boiler reliability. The mechanisms that can lead to failures in a steam boiler system can often be identified if you know what to look for. Here are five (5) common causes of waterside failures with pictures and descriptions to help you recognize them.

Properly measuring ORP (Oxidation-Reduction Potential) and understanding its limitations when used to monitor and control oxidizing biocide feed is important to minimize the potential for increased corrosion rates, excessive chemical feeds, and biofouling.

Steam Purity is a measure of all contaminants in steam, with high-purity steam containing only trace amounts of contamination. Maintaining high steam purity is important in many industries, but there are few applications where it is more critical than in healthcare facilities that use plant steam for surgical instrument sterilization and/or operating room humidification. In a hospital, any contaminants in the steam could potentially interfere with proper sterilization as well as be inhaled by hospital patients, staff, and visitors. Understanding how and where to add the water treatment chemicals and the factors that can cause boiler water carryover will help hospitals ensure that high-purity plant steam is consistently produced.

The HVAC system is the largest user of energy and water in typical commercial buildings. In the past, energy costs overshadowed water costs. Recent droughts and the need to expand municipal water supplies to support growth have led to increased water costs nationwide. Combined with the focus on water conservation in green buildings, the payback associated with reducing building water usage is greater than ever. Most commercial buildings use water cooled chillers to provide air conditioning because they are much more energy efficient than air-cooled chillers. Achieving these efficiencies, however, requires large quantities of water to operate a cooling tower. Most buildings also use re-circulating hot and chilled water loops to distribute heating and cooling throughout the building. Although not designed to routinely use water, these systems can use large amounts of water if undetected leaks occur. As the major consumer of water, the building HVAC system is an obvious target for water conservation efforts and often provides significant saving.

Breweries are obsessive about hygiene. The management of bacterial growth throughout the whole process is thoroughly monitored on a daily basis in a brewery since the consequences of bacterial action can include: off-taste, appearance change, and unpleasant odors. That’s just the product. Bacterial growth involves the formation of biofilms, which is the primary mode of survival and proliferation for microorganisms leading also to fouling and corrosion of equipment. The impact can be huge on the operations in many ways: cost of production, increased water and energy usage, production yield, commercial reputation, etc. A responsive “Get Clean, Keep Clean” approach can help breweries avoid these problems.

Microbiological problems in cooling water systems cost businesses billions of dollars each year due to high energy costs, production losses, unscheduled maintenance, and replacement of corroded parts. Poor microbiological control can also lead to unsafe operating conditions, such as contamination by the bacterium that causes Legionnaires’ disease. While this article focuses on biocide contact time, there are many factors to consider when choosing the correct biocide, including:

In terms of raw energy efficiency and the ability to provide precise cooling under fluctuating load conditions, recirculating evaporative cooling water systems with chillers or heat pumps are the most efficient way to remove heat from a process or building air. However, adiabatic cooling systems can be a good fit with an overall lower cost for heat removal in some climates and applications.

The pandemic has been challenging for many small brewers. Although draft beer sales in the US were down more than 40% in 2020, the number of craft breweries increased to an all-time high of 8,764. The popularity of these smaller breweries shows their resilience to weathering the worst of economic conditions. Although each brewery has a unique brewing style and operation, they all require the use of steam to brew. Proper boiler operation and maintenance is important to ensure an uninterrupted steam supply during brews. However, due to how small breweries operate, effectively managing oxygen corrosion can be very challenging.