|
Meredith College Goes
Green
Tom Sherry - Director of
Operations at Meredith College in Raleigh, NC needed better control
over the existing water treatment program protecting Meredith's 2600
tons of open loop cooling tower system and 3 - 300 hp steam boilers.
Several traditional water treatment options were presented.
After significant
research and site visits a decision was made to choose the non-chemical
Bon Aqua program. The Bon Aqua water treatment program was chosen
because it eliminates all corrosion and inorganic scale control
chemicals, reduces biological chemical demand, reduces system water
consumption and because it creates a scale free environment - saves
energy.
There were local
establishments with similar sizes HVAC equipment that had been
successfully applying the technology for over 10 years. The Bon Aqua
water treatment program supplies a steam-condensate, or an open loop
water cooling process with flux density greater than 22,400 gauss,
which in turn causes an electric current to be generated in the flowing
water. According to physics, this creates a "Faraday's Generator" with
the flowing water being the armature and the steel pipe being the field
coil. An impressed current from a negative ground source supplies an
infinite flow of electrons to the metal pipe and into the flowing
water. Proper application of the Bon Aqua technology will cathodically
protect the entire open loop water system.
In December of 2003 a
partnership was formed. Consistent effort by Ron Johnson (Maintenance
Manager) and Tony Alston (HVAC Technician) in managing the HVAC
equipment and applying the concepts of the Bon Aqua program has:
1) Eliminated over 95% of
the water treatment chemicals used at Meredith
2) Reduced water consumption by more than 5 - million gallons per year
3) Kept the heat exchange equipment scale and corrosion free - saving
energy
4) Eliminated the discharge of toxic chemicals to the
sewer-environmentally friendly
The steam boilers were
opened for inspection after a year of Bon Aqua water treatment and were
clean. Chiller - condensers have been opened and the tube bundles were
scale free. Tony Alston learned the art of chemical water treatment in
the Navy and has done an exceptional job managing the Bon Aqua program.
Tony said; "the Bon Aqua program worked well and is as near a perfect
water treatment system possible". "The Bon Aqua Program has done
everything they said it would do".
Tom Sherry agrees. "This
has been a good program for Meredith". Their HVAC equipment is
protected from scale and corrosion. Re-occurring chemical costs have
been eliminated freeing that money up for other projects. A safer
working environment has been created for their employees that normally
handle water treatment chemicals. Meredith not only saves millions of
gallons of water per year but also no longer discharges used water
treatment chemicals to the sewer.
Tom Sherry Director
of Operations / Department of Facilities Services
Meredith College / Aramark Facility Services
sherryt@meredith.edu / sherry-tom@aramark.com
(v) 919.760.8011 / (fax) 919.760.2885
|
