Advantages of adding filters in cooling tower
Advantages of adding filters in cooling tower
(OP)
What're the advantages or disadvantages to add filters in cooling towers?
And why some cooling towers have no filters?
And why some cooling towers have no filters?





RE: Advantages of adding filters in cooling tower
That gets circulated through your cooling system and can contribute to fouling of heat exchangers.
Major disadvanage of filters off the top of my head would be the loss in circulation if you have a slipstream filter back to the sump (what water goes through the filter doesn't go through the system) or the pressure loss if it's an inline filter on the supply/return header, either full or partial flow. I think most filters are partial flow, full flow would be very large and expensive.
RE: Advantages of adding filters in cooling tower
The suspended matter will concentrate in the cooling tower in direct proportion to the cycles of concentration.
The cooling tower manufacturer will specify a maximum suspended solids concentration in the cooling tower. A typical maximum is approximately 50.
So if you have 5 mg/l in the raw water, you can operate with 10 cycles of concentration.
If you have 25 mg/l in the raw water, you can operate for only 2 cycles unless you want to add a sidestream filter.
It is usually less expensive to use a sidestream treatment approach than to try to treat the entire makeup stream to the cooling tower.
RE: Advantages of adding filters in cooling tower
Manual cleaning of fouled film fill is not fun nor inexpensive.
The rule of thumb is to size the sidestream filters for 2-3% of the circulating water flow rate. All of the towers that I have applied sidestream filters to have been able to keep the circulating water at less than 10 NTU. These towers were operating at 6-10 cycles. I like to use gravity dual media filters with air scour and integral backwash storage tanks for this service. Size them for about 5 gpm/ft^2 and cover the storage compartment.
If you don't cover the storage compartment UV will degrade the chlorine and let algae grow there. the algae then fouls the filter media, degrading filter performance and increasing backwash frequency.
You can use pressure filters but the cost of the code stamp for them adds $$$$.
RE: Advantages of adding filters in cooling tower
RE: Advantages of adding filters in cooling tower
In addition, I suggest you visit
thread798-42903
thread378-55882
RE: Advantages of adding filters in cooling tower
If your tower is located in an area that is prone to windstorms with high levels of entrained solids you may need sidestream filters to prevent the porblems I mentioned earlier. I recall seeing a tower at a powerplant in SE New Mexico which had scrubbed enough sand out of the air that the solids were about 2' below the top of the basin. that tower used well water with less than 1 ppm TSS for makeup. The only thing that saved that tower was it was a cross flow with splash fill.
RE: Advantages of adding filters in cooling tower
I was talking to a filter vendor last week, and they said filter won't help in cycles and chemicals reduction, so if I put enough chemicals to the tower, why I still need a filter?
Thanks guys, I'm very confuse on that.
RE: Advantages of adding filters in cooling tower
Do they do any farming near your plant site? If they do you can expect increased ambient particulate loads while the farmers are plowing and during harvests.