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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
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