Cooling Tower Technology Reduces Germ-Infested Water, Reduces Overall Cost

Dais nanotechnology

by | Oct 8, 2015

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Dais nanotechnologyDais Analytic, a commercial nanotechnology materials company, has completed the testing of its cooling tower technology that the company says is safer and more efficient than traditional cooling tower technology.

PolyCool features Dais Analytic’s Aqualyte nanomaterial. The testing comes as legionella bacteria, the cause of Legionnaire’s disease, has led to at least 12 deaths in New York and seven outside of Chicago areas.

Dais Analytic CEO Tim Tangredi says PolyCool has the potential to reduce germ-infested water, thus improving the health and safety of people across the globe. PolyCool can improve new and existing cooling tower applications, he says. It can also lower the demand for more water and improve the quality of water, thus reducing maintenance costs while improving energy efficiency.

One of the most common uses for cooling towers is by commercial structures as a form of cooling to remove the heat created by the building’s heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system. Cooling tower systems typically rely upon a water-based solution to gather the heat from the HVAC system, bring it to a tower, and ultimately allow the heat to escape. Once the heat is removed, the water-based solution is re-circulated into the building to take out more heat.

There are two common forms of cooling towers: wet and dry. Wet cooling towers evaporate heated water using a tangled packing material known as “fill” to spread the heat-carrying water onto a thin film over a large surface area to speed evaporation. This technology requires expensive and ongoing maintenance costs of the systems, as well as frequent escape of the dirty water from the evaporative cooling process to the area around the evaporative cooler and into the clean water supply.

By comparison, dry cooling towers use a barrier material to separate the working fluid from the air, preventing the release of water droplets into the air that can carry dangerous bacteria to humans or animals. The downside is dry units are unable to take advantage of evaporative cooling methods — thus reducing their efficiency.

Dais’ PolyCool is a hybrid product, taking the strengths of both wet and dry cooling tower technologies and offering greater safety and efficiencies, the company says. PolyCool offers the performance of a wet cooling tower evaporating the water vapor through the solid Aqualyte nanotechnology membrane. This establishes a barrier, similar to dry cooling technologies. It inhibits bacterial transmission while keeping the working fluid isolated in an otherwise closed system for increased safety, reducing the likelihood of passing dangerous germs and viruses. As the Aqualyte material shows reduced scaling and fouling concerns, water can contain a higher concentration of dissolved minerals, lessening the requirements for used water to be replaced thus allowing the use of recycled water sources instead of potable water.

During the coming year, the Dias says it will work alongside select HVAC original equipment manufacturers and key end-users needing the benefits of PolyCool’s higher performing feature set to expand sales to the general cooling tower marketplace.

 

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