Benefit of filtration in physical water treatment for the mitigation of mineral fouling in heat exchangers

The objective of the present study was to investigate the benefit of filtration in the physical water treatment used to mitigate mineral scale build-up in heat exchangers. Two types of filters were used: a 5-μm cartridge fabric filter and a sand filter with 20-μm pores, both of which were used at a side-stream loop in a laboratory cooling tower. Heat transfer fouling experiments were conducted using a double-pipe heat exchanger with cooling water at 5 and 8 cycles of concentration with a make-up water hardness of 200–240 ppm. The test results demonstrated that the filtration enhanced the performance of the PWT synergistically, resulting in a near initial peak heat transfer performance in the double-pipe heat exchanger.