Industry uses water every day for heating, cooling, cleaning, a product component, and more. This includes manufacturing, commercial, institutional, healthcare, food & beverage, hospitality, power generation, and other industrial-sized users. The unique properties of water along with its plentiful supply in many areas makes it both an invaluable and irreplaceable resource. While oil lubricates the wheels of industry, water is its lifeblood.

Water is a vital part of today’s industrial and digital economy. Used to provide cooling, heating, power, and even as a product component, water systems come with both challenges and opportunities. When considering industrial water treatment opportunities, one must evaluate not only their merits but also their associated costs. Calculating the Return on Investment (ROI) is a tool that can help justify the positive benefits of proceeding forward.

Water treatment products help control scale deposits, minimize corrosion, and in some applications fight unwanted microbiological activity. Not only is selecting the proper products vital for a successful water treatment program but understanding how they behave and how that relates to controlling them is equally as important.

Cooling towers, steam boilers, and recirculating closed loop systems require effective water treatment chemistry for reliable and efficient operation. Liquid treatment chemicals are traditionally used because they are easier to manufacture and add to systems, but liquids aren’t always the best fit and present safety and environmental concerns that are often overlooked.

The quality of water entering a boiler, cooling, or process system can have a significant impact on water, energy, and system efficiency. Raw makeup water can come with many different types of impurities, including dissolved and suspended solids, which can lead to energy-robbing scale deposits and equipment-damaging corrosion. Pretreatment equipment removes unwanted impurities from raw makeup water before they can cause problems in industrial water systems.

For decades, Chem-Aqua has provided custom treatment programs that solve waterside problems and make water systems more efficient. With representation in over 50 countries across the globe, we provide programs for water systems in manufacturing, food and beverage, healthcare, data centers, educational, office, government, and hospitality facilities.

Return on investment for a sustainable operation is linked to energy and water savings and ultimately the water treatment program. With increasing energy costs and water scarcity concerns, more than ever, pressure is being placed on facility managers to find ways to reduce usage.
An effective water treatment program is a critical part of the preventative maintenance of boiler and cooling systems. In many cases, the water treatment program can be engineered to improve energy and water efficiency, reduce chemical usage, and optimize results. Automating blowdown, chemical feed and control, and other treatment processes can effectively help make a water treatment program more sustainable.

Water and energy go hand in hand. It takes energy to pump, treat, heat, and cool water for boiler and cooling systems. Not only can optimizing water usage help minimize energy usage, but managing scale deposits, corrosion, and biofilms also play a role in energy demands.

Boiler and cooling water systems require substantial amounts of energy to run our modern-day world. Proper water management can help reduce and optimize these energy demands. Multiple strategies are available to help meet energy-saving objectives, including optimizing water chemistry, improved pretreatment, preventing scale deposits, reducing water waste, and equipment maintenance.

Water is an ultimate sustainable resource. The hydrologic cycle works to continuously return water to nature for reuse. The challenge is to find enough usable water without overtaxing nature’s ability to replenish the local water supply. 

As a large consumer of fresh water, boiler and cooling systems are obvious targets for water conservation efforts. When properly managed, reducing water usage for these systems can have the added benefit of reducing the total costs of operation. There are multiple strategies to help meet water-saving objectives, including management and control of water chemistry, makeup water pretreatment, use of alternative water sources, and equipment maintenance.

As the global population grows and the demand for water, energy, and other natural resources increase, it is important to responsibly manage and use all our resources wisely. An effective water treatment program helps maximize the life, efficiency, reliability, and safety of boiler, cooling, closed loop, and wastewater systems and minimizes water usage, energy demand, greenhouse gas emissions, and total costs.