TABLE OF CONTENTS I don t know how ordinary people, lacking an engineering background, take care of their swimming pools. Unless you have lots of time, money, and a degree in water chemistry, do not buy a home with a pool.
One thing my pool and process cooling water towers have in common is sludge. Perhaps you have driven past a refinery cooling tower with frothy, white foam billowing from its top. That s caused by the following sequence of events:
A tube leak develops in a process condenser.
The process-side hydrocarbons leak into the cooling water return line.
The hydrocarbons in the circulating warm cooling water (70 to 100 F) promote the formation of algae.
The algae die, settle out on the cooling water distribution decks, and form a sludge. The sludge also fouls heat exchanger surfaces and the cooling water distribution piping.
The cooling tower is now shocked with chlorine to establish a chlorine residual of a few ppm. If the cooling tower is really dirty, this takes lots of chlorine.
The dead and dying algae mix with the air flowing through the cooling tower to form froth.
To maintain a clean cooling water system requires the maintenance of a chlorine residual content of a few ppm. Organic material leaking into the cooling water consumes chlorine. Without a residual chlorine content an organic sludge will form. Thus, the prerequisite for maintaining good heat transfers in cooling water exchangers is to eliminate hydrocarbon leaks into the circulating water system.
