Cargill: Treating Hard Water Scale in a Gluten Cooler

• Project/Customer: Cargill
• Scope of Work: Process water treatment for different “once through” applications
• EasyWater Equipment: 1 x No-Salt Conditioner

Problem

Cargill uses plate and frame heat exchangers to cool hot gluten with well water in a “pump and dump” type arrangement. The problem they were having was that about every five weeks, the well water side of the plate would build hard water scale to the point that it could no longer adequately cool the gluten.

Gluten Cooler Test

Cargill decided to test the EasyWater No-Salt Conditioners to see if they could slow down the scale buildup in their gluten cooler. Cargill was able to track the actual heat transfer coefficient in these heat exchangers. Their graph below shows that after the plate were acid cleaned on about November 20, the heat transfer coefficient was around 320. Within roughly five weeks on December 27, scale had build on the well water side of the plates and the heat transfer coefficient was back down below 100, which they deemed an unacceptable level.

Test Results

On February 17, 2015 (depicted by the green line on their graph), Cargill installed EasyWater No-Salt Conditioners on the well water line to the plate and frame heat exchanger/gluten cooler. The test was conducted for six months, during which time the heat transfer coefficient was consistently tracked and documented every 15 days.

As their graph shows, the No-Salt Conditioners not only kept new scale from forming on the plates, but removed existing scale which gradually increased the heat transfer coefficient.

Conclusion

Below is a picture they sent of the plates after 1-1/2 years of operation with the EasyWater No-Salt Conditioners treating the well water and without any chemical cleaning. The plates have still not required any chemicals or acid cleaning after almost 3-1/2 years of operation.

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