Real “Green” vs. Fake “Green”

Channel surfing last night led us to a re-run of the movie “The Simpsons”. This was the movie where the whole town of Springfield was put under a glass bubble by the EPA due to their (Homer’s, naturally) inability to cope with years of dumping toxic waste into Lake Springfield. The crux of the story is that while the citizenry as a whole finally wake up to fix the problem, it only takes a handful to tip the balance and ruin it for everyone.

The movie allowed my mind to wander about the whole environmental movement and the misguided efforts of many to wrap an existing product into a new package in order to call it “green”. These items cover the whole spectrum of offerings-from gadgets that attach to domestic water pipes with promises to “soften” the water without conventional salt chemistry – to products that have been “certified green” by some agency that only requires a fee for this certification – to items such as light bulbs that extend the life of the bulb and require less energy, but are loaded with environmentally hazardous materials.

Fortunately, EnduroSolv® Solid Water Treatment is not one of those products. We don’t pretend or promise a panacea for eliminating all aspects of dealing with chemical water treatments, but we have made great strides in providing a product that eliminates most of the hazards of shipping and handling of corrosive liquid products. Simply put, EnduroSolv® is:

• existing water treatment technology
• produced in a different form
• that is easier and safer to use
• as well as being more environmentally friendly

So, if you are in need of a best-of-breed water treatment program for cooling tower, closed loop system or boiler applications, we encourage you to consider EnduroSolv®. You’ll get the water treatment you need, plus really help to sustain the environment.

Posted on behalf of Jim Heimert

Improving Cycles of Concentration

Cycles of Concentration, Cycles, and Concentration Ratio are all terms used to define how many times we can reuse the water in a system, before we have to remove some of the concentrated water (Blowdown) to prevent scaling or depositing from occurring. The more times we can reuse the water, the more efficient we are in the use of that water and improve the Sustainability of the process. To help understand how the term is used, how it is calculated and what the significance of it is, I’ll use a cooling tower to illustrate the principals involved.

A cooling tower is designed to evaporate heat from a process or HVAC system. As the higher temperature water evaporates, it leaves behind the minerals in the water. Think of a glass of distilled water in which we put a tablespoon of salt and stir it up. We can’t see the salt now; it is dissolved in the water. If we allow that glass to sit for a week or so, at least until all the water is evaporated, what do we have left in the glass? Salt – a tablespoon to be exact.

If we now add another tablespoon of salt to that glass and enough distilled water to fill it, and then stir it a bit, we now have 2 tablespoons of salt dissolved in the same volume of water. We can repeat this evaporation process and adding salt until we reach a point where no matter how much we stir the salt, we see it immediately start to settle on the bottom of the glass.

To measure what that limit is, we use a simple process of measuring a very soluble ion – Chlorides for example, in the city water (Make up Water), and compare it to the chlorides in the tower water (or concentrated water). The formula is:

Cycles = Chlorides in the Tower Water / Chlorides in the Make up Water

If our Make Up Water has Chlorides of 25 (ppm, but that’s another discussion), and the Tower Water has 100 Chlorides (ppm), then we have 100/25 = 4 cycles.

So what? Well, the more we can reuse the water before we have to send some to the drain to prevent scaling or settling, the less water we will need for makeup and the less chemical we will need for the new water being added. In fact at 3 cycles of concentration, 1/3rd of the water we are adding is due to blowdown. At 5 cycles, only 1/5th of the water being added is due to blowdown.

To help you increase your water, sewer and chemical dollar savings, ask your water treatment representative what you can do to increase your Cycles of Concentration in your systems.

Posted on behalf of Fred Lattin

The Unknown… Fear It? Or Embrace It

In recent weeks, one of the key, ongoing discussions within our organization has been that of size and space requirements for APTech Group to continue to effectively and efficiently manufacture and distribute EnduroSolv® and other solid water treatment products. With the extraordinary continued growth and acceptance of the solid cooling tower and boiler water products that APTech Group manufactures, there will come a point in time where the existing manufacturing set-up will be insufficient. Many of these discussions focus on the ability to rethink and reorganize the processes we have and adapt them to the facility we currently occupy. And from there determine the practicality of continuing to conduct business in the current setting.

All this leads to lots of introspection and evaluating of what is done at APTech. The time, cost and overall effort to move APTech’s process would be a seismic event and has to be approached with the best possible plan in place. In the end it will be hard to make the move or at least make the decision to move. The current facility is familiar and constant … we know how to produce great product at a cost we know we can manage if we remain where we are. But often this fact is overridden by our intuition that we have to do something different, better. When do we make that leap of faith?

I believe there is a parallel in this decision to the decision of deciding whether a switch should be made to either solid cooling tower or boiler water treatment. Your intuition tells you that the solid products are better because of all of the benefits that they provide to your facility and staff but the incumbent treatment product is the familiar constant much like our current production facility is. While the switch to solid products may not be a seismic event like moving to a larger manufacturing facility or changing production processes, it is none the less a very critical decision to make a move to working with something that is a relatively new.

If you are interested in EnduroSolv® and solid water treatment products in general please contact us and let us tell you our story … hopefully it will help make your “move” easier.

Posted on behalf of Matt Horine

AWT Recap

It’s been a couple weeks since we got back from the annual Association of Water Technologies Conference and Expo in Reno Nevada. But I’m still buzzing about what a great week it was for APTech Group. Our booth was constantly busy with water treaters interested in taking on the EnduroSolv® solid-state water treatment product line – and checking out the new multi-puck “Tower” dissolving unit.

In years past there may have been some skepticism. After all, EnduroSolv® solids were a bit revolutionary when we introduced the product line in 2002. But with thousands of successful installations across North America and abroad and tremendous sales growth year after year (up 30% 2010 alone!), EnduroSolv® has proven to be a winner.

We’re busy following up with possible future distributors, but there are still opportunities for additional water treater partners. If you’re interested, just fill out a contact form on the EnduroSolv® site – www.endurosolv.com.