Article
Industrial water treatment: optimising costs and operational efficiency with intelligence
Find out how to save costs per m3 of water treated, reduce complexity and increase efficiency in your water treatment system with Grundfos iSOLUTIONS.
Are you finding it difficult to keep track of costs per m3 of water treated? Many system operators today find it challenging to determine the exact costs of their water treatment system since there’s a number of difficult-to-measure factors involved – from chemical usage and water consumption to cleaning and supervision time.
On top of this, are you aware of the potentials to optimise your system? The reality is that most water treatment systems aren’t actually performing at maximum efficiency. For instance, many membrane treatment systems don’t run efficiently as they simply aren’t prepared to cope with changes in water flow and pressure. The pre-treatment of feed water is also often inadequate. And this leads to higher costs for cleaning and maintenance due to a number of issues, such as more frequent backwashing, which ultimately increases water consumption.
In addition, since all steps in the water treatment process are connected and dependent on each other, any failure will typically affect the entire system. This can result in failing treatment processes, the wrong water quality and unexpected downtime. All of which can lead to a high consumption of water, chemicals and energy. And, in a worst-case scenario, a complete production stop in your factory.
All of the above are key challenges in industrial water treatment, especially since water reuse is increasing and bringing additional challenges, such as varying water quality.
Achieving intelligent and efficient water treatment
What if your pump could automatically know how many chemicals were needed in the system to run optimally? This is exactly what the SMART Digital DDA-FCM intelligent dosing pump can do. Its precise dosing control can, for example, ensure the right level of active biocides, antiscalants and anti-corrosion chemicals in order to minimise chemical and -water use. And its flow control monitoring and AutoFlowAdapt functions aids dosing and conditioning regardless of process changes. All of which means greater operational efficiency.
What if you could also significantly decrease water use while ensuring the correct water flow? With Grundfos iSOLUTIONS, both chemical and physical treatment can be optimised. To run efficiently, pumps must be able to account for variability in water quality and demand. For instance, in an ultrafiltration or reverse osmosis system. Traditional pumps use throttling valves to control the flow rate, which is wasteful in terms of energy, extra wear and maintenance, and makes the system less cost efficient. Intelligent pumps from Grundfos, however, allow you to control the required flow in a more energy-efficient and economical way.
In addition to this, it’s also possible to react to system changes and failures remotely. Grundfos offers the DID measuring and control system, which is designed to measure key water quality parameters and help indicate the overall efficiency of a water treatment system. And with Grundfos Machine Health, you get actionable data to enable predictive maintenance of your pumps and other assets.
With all these solutions, you have the ability to gain insights automatically. This enables you to make informed decisions based on your data and react to system changes and failures with real-time performance data. So with Grundfos iSOLUTIONS, you can increase operational efficiency in your water treatment system while lowering costs.