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Commercial Buildings Search for Safe and Sustainable Water Treatment Solutions
AP Tech’s solid chemistry water treatment programs are developed and produced using the EPA’s Twelve Principles of Green Chemistry, emphasizing safety, efficiency and conservation of resources.
Like many facilities where numerous people congregate, commercial buildings such as offices, hotels, and restaurants have a growing need to protect their heating and cooling systems with safer and more sustainable solutions. Transporting pails or barrels of hazardous liquid chemicals through public or employee spaces and using liquid chemicals in close proximity to building tenants and members of the public can be dangerous.
Many facilities have mechanical rooms close to building populations – often either in the basement level next to or immediately below building office space or in a rooftop mechanical room, right above executive offices. Other commercial facilities such as shopping centers and tourist attractions have campus-like environments with multiple small mechanical rooms and heating and cooling equipment in numerous locations.
A recent report published by the World Green Building Council, a network of national green building councils in more than one hundred countries, determined that there are actually health benefits associated with working in sustainable buildings. Specifically, the study found that workers in green offices experience less stress, better health, and are more productive.
Solids provide environmental and safety advantages important to commercial building management teams and help eliminate the dangers of transporting potentially hazardous liquids through high traffic areas. Thousands of commercial buildings have made the switch to solids for these reasons.
Case Study – A commercial center reaches environmental and safety goals
Water Treatment Challenge:
One very large commercial center had been using liquid chemistry water treatment products in its cooling system for many years. The technical results had always been acceptable. In recent years, however, the management team of the commercial center had become more and more focused on environmental issues. Partnering with their water treatment provider and AP Tech, they evolved their traditional water treatment and maintenance program to be more sustainable. By making the switch to solids, the commercial center was able to create a comprehensive, multi-directional water treatment program to help them reach their new environmental and safety goals.
Solving the Water Treatment Challenge with Solids:
The commercial center installed AP Tech’s solid chemistry water treatment program for five cooling towers and chillers, each with 1,000 tons of refrigeration, with slightly soft municipal water for make-up.
With the implementation of the solids program, cycles of concentration were increased from 5 to 10, which enabled significant water savings and reduced chemical usage. PLC controllers were installed to allow for automatic, ongoing corrosion measurement without the need for corrosion coupons and automatic control of the number of operating chillers needed at any one time.
After six months, the performance of the solid chemistry provided better system protection than the previous liquid chemistry program as tracked by the commercial center’s facility management team.
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