Foam Treatment of Cooling Towers

The Health and Safety Executive gave the following guidance

"Accessible areas of the tower and its pack should be adequately washed but cleaning methods that create excessive spray, for example high-pressure water jetting should be avoided."

IWS is proud to announce the release of a new method of treating the internals and externals of cooling towers which avoids the use of high pressure water jetting and reduces the need to remove cooling infil (packing) from cooling towers by using foaming agents during the routine cleaning and disinfection.

Development in the foaming chemistry has lead to a product that is specifically aimed at tackling light scale and biological growth on surfaces in one application of foam.

The foam is generated using a specialist foaming equipment (Fig 1) to produce a "wet" foam which "sticks" (Fig 2) to areas where it is applied. The foam then attacks both biological growth with dispersant and Chlorine Dioxide and the scale with an acid formula. The acidity of the foam is particularly effective at softening most forms of scale commonly found on cooling towers.

Once applied the foam is left to work on the deposits and then can be washed off with an open ended low pressure hose.

Specialist Personal Protective Equipment is used during the foaming to protect the operatives that are applying the foam.

The foaming of a cooling tower does not remove the need to clean and disinfect in accordance with the HSE L8 guidance. Foam treatment is a superb method of removing "difficult" scale and biological deposits as part of the cleaning process.

Foaming a cooling tower has several key benefits:

Reduced need for high pressure washing
Treatment of cooling infill (packing) in situ.
Improved cleaning and scale removal
Advanced biocides direct on to the wetted surface

We would be pleased to visit your site to discuss the benefits and assess the type of treatment that could be applied to your cooling system.

Photograph for Foam Treatment of Cooling Towers