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Before governments began monitoring wastewater discharges and long before it was popular to be "green" in your process, a Swedish company named Wirsbo partnered with a Minnesota based water treatment company to solve both a process wastewater problem and develop a system to reuse the process water.
Wirsbo, founded in 1694 in Sweden is most famous for its world leading in floor radiant heat tubing.
Wirsbo manufactures its tubing through a robotic extrusion process, cooling the tubing in water troughs fed 24/7 by the robots. Because of the high temperature, and the open air trough, the cooling water in the trough was black and oily, with a burning odor. The trough itself had string algae 1-2" thick on the sides. Minnesota Water Treatment arrived with ionization and oxygenation technology in 1996 to design and develop a chemical free system.
Wirsbo has a 50 year warranty on their tubing, the use of chlorine or other chemicals degrade the life of their product. Tests after cooling, in chemically treated water were employed and were the same. Chemicals were not an option!
Minnesota Water Treatment not only solved the "black water" cooling trough issue, a recirculation strategy was ultimately developed allowing water to recirculate through 60 ton EVAPCO cooling towers and chiller bundles in later years.
"In addition to the extreme black water on install, it was determined that fusaria and nematode infestations to the cooling trough water existed as loading dock doors allowed these common spores to enter the open trough water on each robotic process line."
Wirsbo implemented programmable controllers and an ionization test on every shift to prevent recurrence of the microbes.
Glass media was implemented in 2006 at flow rates of 60 GPM to 400 GPM to further lower microns of filtration and maintenance cost. Filtration has evolved from bag to DE, DE to Zeolite, Zeolite to Glass over the 13 year site history, with Glass media extending both media life and reducing backwash by 50%. The glass media is used in Pentair TA 60, TA 100 and TR 140 low pressure, high flow rate sand filters with high flow rate valves. Two years without re-bedding is now historical.
The use of ASAHI differential pressure valves has allowed a headered bank of filters to automatically shift filters for backwashing at the convenience of on-site personnel. Previous bag filter systems did not permit the recirculation and rinse of the water and would shut down flow in the troughs requiring cleaning or change out to continue manufacturing tubing.
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Larry Couture CEO of ECOsmarte ECOsmarte has non-salt, non-chemical water technology installed in all 50 US states and 85 countries. In 2009 ECOsmarte received the Water Quality Association's GOLD SEAL designation for its municipal water whole house systems. http://www.ecosmarte.com http://www.glasspackfilter.com
Disclaimer: All information on this site is provided for informational purposes only! By no means is any
information presented herein intended to substitute for the advice provided to you by any health care or other professional
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