Water Treatment

When planning and designing a man made on land aquaculture or pisciculture facility.

The most important key element is the quality of the water. For operations developing in Florida or the Caribbean it is important to remember that water quality varies in Florida and other states in the US and typically requires some type of water treatment. For fresh and salt water land based farms that utilize tanks located inside of a building the water needs to be treated and pure from any naturally occurring contaminants such as hydrogen sulfide (H2S), iron (Fe+), and even carbon dioxide (CO2).

The most cost effective way to treat incoming water for aquaculture farming and remove hydrogen sulfide, iron, and lower carbon dioxide is the use of a “degasification” tower. A degasification tower or degasifier is a piece of process equipment. Degasifiers can also be referred to as a “decarbonator” or “air stripper” or even “aeration tower”. The degasification tower is a vertical column designed to remove certain types of contaminants by “stripping” the molecules of converted gases and expelling them from the water as a gas. The science is based upon “Henry’s Law” and it relies upon the disproportionate varying vapor pressures of gases.

If the incoming raw water contains levels of sulfides or hydrogen sulfide gases it is recommended to remove the hydrogen sulfide to improve the water quality and reduce the risk of the development and formation of bacteria that can thrive on the Sulfur. In addition hydrogen sulfide is corrosive and will cause harm to other components within the process if left untreated. It is important to adjust the pH of the raw feed water prior to degasification to ensure full conversion of the sulfides into hydrogen sulfide gas (H2S) to enable the degasification process to perform and remove up to 99.99% of the harmful contaminants without adding additional chemicals. This saves money and improves quality of the product!

Topics: water quality, degasification, pH levels of water, water treatment, hydrogen sulfide (H2S), pH levels, Alkalinity, Decarbonation, Caribbean, carbon dioxide, decarbonator, degasifier, gases, carbonic acid, H2S Degasifier, Aqua Farming, Fish Farming, Aquaculture, Pisciculture

DeLoach Industries made history in 1977 at the City of Cape Coral Florida water treatment plant with its large scale “degasification towers” connected to what was to become the first municipal water treatment facility in the United States to deploy the use of reverse osmosis on a large-scale production municipal treatment plant.

The Cape Coral water treatment plant for came on line in 1977 and produced 3 million gallons of water per day (GPD) or 11.35 liters of purified and treated water utilizing the “reverse osmosis” process. By 1985 the plant had expanded as it kept up with growth to produce 15 million gallons per day making it at the time the worlds’ largest “reverse osmosis” water treatment plant facility.

Topics: water quality, pH levels of water, water treatment, advanced treatment solutions, water plant, hydrogen sulfide (H2S), pH levels, Alkalinity, scaling, chlorine, caustic, Decarbonation, wastewater, carbon dioxide, degasifier, RO membrane, RO system, H2S Degasifier

Caustic solution for Sodium hydroxide water treatment

There are many industries that require the use of a caustic scrubber which is considered a chemical scrubber and they range from the municipal industry, mining, semiconductor markets, pulp and paper and chemical refining.  There is a wide variety of industrial processes that generate noxious or corrosive off gases that require treatment and a comparison is made about biological Vs. chemical.  Often biological scrubbers have limitations due to concentrations, composition, or temperature of the contaminants and if the gas stream contains acid fumes then a biological scrubber is quickly ruled out.

The odor control selection is often fraught with choices of capital cost over operational cost and quite often comes down to familiarity from the designer or purchaser.  It is always a good idea to freshen up on the industrial odor control the do’s and don’t’s before selecting the final solution.  If the off gas source that needs to be treated is hydrogen sulfide (H2S) or some other type of gas stream produced by an acid or ammonia it will often require neutralization for human health reasons and to protect equipment or may be required to meet regulatory compliance. Caustic scrubbers may be either vertical or horizontal by design, but both utilize a packed media bed of either random packing or trays to allow the gas fumes to meet the recirculating caustic solution which then forces the reaction to occur.

Topics: water treatment issues, water quality, degasification, pH levels of water, odor control, water treatment, advanced treatment solutions, biological scrubber, water plant, odor control scrubber, hydrogen sulfide (H2S), Chemical Odor, pH levels, caustic, wastewater, carbon dioxide, degasifier, gases, caustic solution, sodium hydroxide water treatment

What type of Odor Control Scrubber do I select?

It's a common question many customers and design professionals ask in the Odor Control Industry when selecting, engineering, and deciding on the best odor control process to utilize to treat gases and noxious odors. An odor control system is comparable to choosing a car in many ways because you have many different options. Each odor control scrubber comes in different types to address the different variations within the industry.  For example, odor control scrubbers are designed to treat “ammonia” and other ones to treat “acid” off-gases. Odor control scrubbers utilize “acid” or “caustic” as the scrubbing reagent to neutralize an off gas.

Odor control scrubbers also come with different purchase prices, each with different operating costs.  It is always important to analyze the operating cost of the odor control solution you select because several different types may perform equally. Each may have varying initial purchase costs, but you should ask and understand, “what will the continued operating cost” be for the type of odor control system selected?  And how long will the scrubber I selected last before additional costs are needed for any significant repairs to keep it running? When you are a design professional, if you choose an odor control system that is difficult or expensive to maintain, you can be assured you will have continued phone calls from customers looking for answers and solutions.  

The industry may soon change with the adaption of “artificial intelligence” as AI is slowly incorporated into the market.  Companies like DeLoach Industries are now incorporating the first variation of artificial intelligence into their odor control scrubber line of products to help owners and operators with real-time information and data communications.  Remember that many types of odor control systems work and remove odors, but selecting and designing a system that works efficiently and effectively without breaking the bank can be challenging.  A design professional should evaluate the cost of the reagents utilized in an odor control scrubber at any specific location because the cost of “caustic” in one location may vary from another.  Or the cost of “acid” may have different base costs or handling costs and considerations.  For a design professional and the supplier of the system, it is essential to consider what an owner and or their operators will be faced with to maintain the odor control system over the long term and what the anticipated operating cost will be both on a day to day basis and a long term service replacement basis.

Topics: water treatment issues, water quality, degasification, pH levels of water, odor control, water treatment, advanced treatment solutions, biological scrubber, water plant, odor control scrubber, hydrogen sulfide (H2S), pH levels, degasifier, gases

The type of Odor Control wet scrubber selected for the treatment and neutralization of Ammonia (NH3) gases depends on several variables, including the type and source of the ammonia gas and whether or not it is “Free” ammonia and or unionized. Ammonia is a very miscible and stable molecule with solid hydrogen bonds, making it very soluble in water and difficult to treat without using a properly designed and sized ammonia scrubber. The concentrations, air flow rates, temperature of the gas stream, and chemical reagents being utilized, such as caustic to remove and then treat the ammonia, all play a significant role in the efficiency of the ammonia scrubber system. Unlike other types of “odor control scrubbers,” an ammonia scrubber is much more sensitive to variables such as the gas stream temperature because of the solubility of ammonia.

  Ammonia is produced from nitrogen and hydrogen 

the process is called the Haber Process by combining nitrogen with air and adding pressure, you can make ammonia. It takes about 200 atmospheres of pressure, and the process varies from refinery to refinery. Still, on average, you can only make approximately 15% of ammonia during each pass which takes multiple passes to achieve the 15%. The reaction to make ammonia is exothermic when produced in a refining process. 

However, ammonia is also formed in nature in smaller quantities. Most ammonia (90%) is utilized for fertilizer production, but ammonia can be found in food, pharmaceutical products, and cleaning supplies. When ammonia gas is released into the air, it has a very noxious and pungent odor that can be dangerous to inhale, so often, odor control scrubbers are required to capture and treat the ammonia gas.

Topics: water treatment issues, water quality, degasification, pH levels of water, odor control, water treatment, advanced treatment solutions, biological scrubber, water plant, odor control scrubber, hydrogen sulfide (H2S), Chemical Odor, pH levels, Decarbonation, dissolved gases, wastewater, degasifier, gases, H2S Degasifier, Ammonia

The water treatment industry has developed and evolved over the years to continue to find new ways to produce degassed water,

with many advances in both the technological methods of treatment as well as the refinement of the existing methods. The evolution of water treatment has been driven by the need for increased demand and over safety standards.

All human cultures on our planet share a 

single commonality and

that is the dependency on water to survive.

Many existing technologies such as “degasification” have evolved with higher efficiency to meet the demand changes and provide safety to consumers and to systems. Degasification refers to the removal of dissolved gases from liquids and the science to degasify water is based upon the “Henry’s Law” or to be exact the “proportionality factor is called the Henry’s law constant” and was developed by William Henry in the early 19th century.

Henry’s Law states that the amount of dissolved gas is proportional to its partial pressure in the gas. The most effective method to perform degasification is with the packed vertical tower called a degasifier or decarbonator. When water enters at the top of the tower it gravity feeds downward across a media bed. The media bed acts to reshape the water over and over again exposing any dissolved gas molecules to the surface of the water droplet.  At the same time that the water is traveling down the interior of the tower an air flow is introduced in a cross current method either by force or by induction that passes over the water droplets and “strips” the gas molecules out of the water. The gases that are stripped then leave the tower through the exhaust at the top of the tower. This is the “basics of water degasification”.

Topics: water quality, degasification, pH levels of water, water treatment, advanced treatment solutions, water plant, safety, hydrogen sulfide (H2S), Chemical Odor, media packing, pH levels, Decarbonation, dissolved gases, wastewater, Global, carbon dioxide, decarbonator, degasifier, gases, RO membrane, H2S Degasifier, degassed water

Water treatment in the Caribbean offers distant challenges for water professionals. During the design process an engineer must examine multiples aspects of a potential project to ascertain the most cost effective and most sustainable approach. Geographic location can become a major variable during the design selection process. As an example, if the location is remote, too often the shipping of liquid chemicals becomes a challenge as well as the training of operators to safely handle the chemicals during normal operations. The ability to secure trained operators may impact the success or failure of a water treatment process such as membrane separation, reverse osmosis and degasification or decarbonation not to mention odor control.

Topics: water treatment issues, water quality, degasification, pH levels of water, water treatment, advanced treatment solutions, water plant, odor control scrubber, pH levels, Alkalinity, Recycling, Caribbean, Global

Do you need to remove or increase your reverse osmosis system's hydrogen sulfide removal efficiency?

Topics: water treatment issues, water quality, degasification, pH levels of water, water treatment, advanced treatment solutions, hydrogen sulfide (H2S), pH levels, Alkalinity, Langilier index (LSI), H2S Degasifier, H2S H2O, removing hydrogen sulfide in water

There are many variables in the process to properly apply decarbonation in a water treatment process and one extremely important factor is alkalinity. The ability to neutralize acids in the water is a simple definition of the term alkalinity. However, the amount of substances in the water such as carbonate, bicarbonate, borate, silicate, and phosphate levels that define alkalinity greatly define the method of proper decarbonation, tower design and anticipated efficiencies.

Topics: water quality, degasification, pH levels of water, water treatment, advanced treatment solutions, bicarbonate, phosphate levels, Silicate, Borate

The terms alkalinity and pH are commonly interchanged within the water industry by design professionals and operators. The term “alkalinity” means the ability to neutralize an acid in a water. The waters ability to neutralize the acid and to what extent is based upon what minerals are dissolved within the water to react to an acidic condition. The term pH is a reference expression used to express the levels or intensity of the water to change from “base” to “neutral”, to “acidic”. The ability to change or be a base or an acid is the result of the water’s alkalinity. For more information or to learn more contact the professionals at DeLoach Industries Inc. at (941) 371-4995.

Topics: water treatment issues, water quality, degasification, pH levels of water, odor control, water distribution system, advanced treatment solutions, Alkalinity