Q. How does Bon Aqua water treatment benefit the environment?

A. By saving approximately 75% of the billions of gallons of water currently being discharged down the drain under a standard chemical treatment program. An additional benefit is that all Bon Aqua treated water that is discharged is free of chemicals that require even more water to be made potable again.

Q. Is it expensive to protect my equipment with Bon Aqua water treatment?

A. Pricing is site specific and depends on the number of lines to be treated and their respective sizes. Bon Aqua units are placed in strategic locations on the equipment, which is determined by a survey of the facility. Bon Aqua treatment is only recommended when it is economically feasible. Payback is generally 1 year for a boiler and almost always under 2 years for a cooling system. (An RFQ form can give you the exact numbers.) Bon Aqua treatment is a one-time investment, as opposed to the recurring, ever increasing cost of chemicals year after year.

Q. Can I try Bon Aqua treatment on only one part of a system, like the inlet line to the boiler, or the return line to the cooling tower while maintaining my current chemical treatment program for the rest of the system?

A. Partial treatment is not recommended for several reasons. With chemicals still running through the system, there would be no accurate way to determine which treatment was working. But more specifically, in a boiler system, the condensate tank must also be protected from the the low pH condensate return, which can cause corrosion and the negatively charged city water, which can cause scale.

In a more complex cooling system Bon Aquas must be placed at the inlet line to each piece of heat exchange equipment after every pump, because a pump (an electrical piece of equipment) scrambles the charge. This means that any equipment left unprotected after a pump is subject to scaling, which can cause surging, diminished heat transfer, and/or corrosion, which can eat through the tubes requiring eventual re-tubing. This is a gamble not worth taking when so much expensive equipment is at stake.

Q.  Can I disconnect my softener after I install Bon Aquas on my boiler system?

A.  No. A softener has an entirely separate function from the water treatment (chemical or non-chemical) for scale in a boiler vessel. The softener's purpose is to remove as much calcium (hardness) as possible before the water enters the boiler vessel. The water treatment of the boiler vessel is meant to prevent the remaining calcium from attaching itself to the boiler tubes in order to allow maximum heat transfer efficiency.

Q. Do I have to shutdown my equipment in order to install the Bon Aquas?

A. In most cases no. Only if the pipe is PVC (plastic) would shut down be required. In this case a metal flange or nipple must be inserted in order for the Bon Aquas to create the necessary Faraday's generator.

Q. How will I know that the Bon Aquas are working?

A. The manufacturer has established monitoring procedures that will track the efficiency of your equipment on a daily basis. The monitoring procedures are measured against a zero base, which is established at the time of installation or as close as possible to that date. The zero base requires photographs and/or micrometer measurements of the tubes of a boiler vessel. In a cooling system, photographs are taken of  the tube sheet and end caps, but to be certain the condenser is clean to begin with, it is recommended that a nondestructive citric acid wash of the condenser tubes be done. Some clients prefer to have an eddy current test performed to know the exact internal state of their equipment, which is compared to follow up tests performed at a later date. A zero base assures the customer that the Bon Aquas are performing as advertised when the equipment is opened for future inspections.

Q. Is the monitoring difficult and time consuming?

A. No, it is extremely simple. Maintain the recommended total dissolved solids (TDS) levels or conductivity (CND), either through blowdown in boilers, or through bleed off in cooling towers, just as you should be doing under any water treatment program. This is accomplished in boilers by taking daily water samples and measuring the TDS/CND, pH levels, and the stack temperature readings. In cooling systems, TDS/CND readings are taken at a petcock installed on the incoming and exiting water lines of the condenser. Efficiency determinations are made in accordance with the instructions in the monitoring section of the technical manual supplied to each customer at the time of installation. All measurements are recorded on a monitoring log and faxed to the installer's office for review. The manual monitoring procedure should take no more than 15 minutes daily. Automated monitoring systems are also available at different price points that can routinely generate reports of these readings.

Q. What about bacteria in my cooling system?

A. Bon Aquas are neither bactericidal, nor bacteriostatic; therefore you would have to continue a biocidal program. Bon Aquas do, however, create an environment where expensive, toxic biocides are no longer necessary. A minimal residual of safe, inexpensive bromine or chlorine is all that is necessary to control bacteria. We realize that under chemical water treatment the dissipation of chlorine or bromine occurs at higher pH levels, but with Bon Aqua treatment the dissipated hypobromous or hypochlorous acid is utilized in a much more effective manner. (Further explanation is found in the cooling tower technical manual supplied to each customer at the time of installation.) The addition of an electrolytic ionizer for bacterial control would make this a completely chemical-free water treatment program.

Q. How long will Bon Aquas last?

A. Bon Aquas use permanent ceramic magnets in their patented amplification system and should last forever. Because magnets lose only one tenth of one percent of their gauss flux density every ten years, the math speaks for itself.

Q. Can the Bon Aquas be turned off?

A. No. Since there is no outside power source, there is nothing to turn off. The power is generated by the flow of the water which becomes the armature for the Faraday's generator, while the pipe becomes the field coil. As long as the water is flowing the Bon Aquas are in operation.

Q. In what types of facilities and on what kinds of equipment are Bon Aquas in use?

A. Bon Aquas are the treatment of choice for facilities such as: hospitals, dairies, textile mills, Navy vessels, skating rinks, manufacturing plants, box/board companies, lumber companies, tobacco processors, food processors, pulp and paper manufacturers, office buildings, schools and universities, prisons, commercial nurseries, commercial laundries, restaurants, mining and more.

Bon Aquas are used on equipment such as: low and high pressure steam boilers, cooling towers, chiller-condensers, air washers, heat exchangers (plate frame, tube and shell, etc.), water cooled air compressors, injection molding machines, ice machines, fountains, medical vacuum pumps, ammonia compressors, freon refrigeration plants, and humidifiers. Bon Aqua water treatment will effectively protect any equipment that needs treatment for scale and non-biological corrosion.

CONCLUSION: while all questions cannot be anticipated, we have tried to cover the most frequently asked. Please feel free to contact us by phone at +336.662.0020, (toll-free in the US 888.294.2424), by fax at +336.662.0385 (US toll-free +800.297.5644), or e-mail at bai2@bonaqua.com for any questions not addressed here.

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