How to minimize your costs for water treatment by use of online TOC measurement technology

As a part of energy contracting, water is often provided as useful energy. For this purpose, water has to be extremely pure. Even the slightest organic impurities lead to damages in the water treatment systems and may cause corrosion in pipelines and heat exchangers. That may result in shut down of the entire system- production stops. This should be avoided.
Suppliers of energy contracting are responsible for large water treatment plants including the production of make-up water for cooling towers or boiler feed water for steam boiler. However, if the plant applies water from relates surface water such as rivers/ lakes, they must expect high loads of TOC (total organic carbon) and DOC (dissolved organic carbon) caused by weather. These may result in damages of the plant. To protect the entire system as well as the activated carbon filter from these over loads, the use of online analysers is an optimal and efficient solution. The online system enables a continuous documentation of the measured values and control of the plant.
LAR's application-specific TOC analyser QuickTOC_ultra is the perfect solution that monitors up to 6 sample streams in one unit. For water treatment, for example, three streams are important: The first stream monitors the inlet to the activated carbon filter, in case of contamination the inlet can be shut off quickly. Further sample streams can monitor the residual capacity of the activated carbon filter. When the measurement value downstream of the filter is greater than a defined value in front of the activated carbon filter, it must be replaced. A defined residual capacity should not be undercut, otherwise cleaning of water is not guaranteed. In case of a very strong raw water contamination, the activated carbon filter and the downstream system have to be shut down.
In practice, LAR's TOC analyser has proven successfully. A large water treatment plant replaced the activated carbon filter every 12-14 months, before installation of QuickTOC_ultra. Since installation, the replacement time has been extended to 25 months (+100%). Thus, it became clear that the activated carbon was changed too often. Up to now, costs of about 25,000 € have been saved. The operator required a reliable and fast measurement that LAR's QuickTOC_ultra met. It convinced with its fast measurement cycle time, with low maintenance costs and effort as well as the multiple stream measurement. Since the installation of the TOC analyser organic loads are determined reliably and quickly, helping the operator to control and manage their processes optimally.