Recycled Water for Cooling Towers: Good Idea or Bad?

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By Paul R. Puckorius
Despite numerous facilities that have converted to recycled (municipal reclaimed) water from
fresh water during the last 10 years for evaporative cooling water systems, there is still a
question for anyone considering this change: Is it worth it? Those facilities considering a change
include utility power plants, petroleum refineries, chemical plants, general manufacturing as well
as HVAC (air conditioning). The trend continues today at increasing rates often due to the
drought and other pressures.
With proper planning, facilities can save from
10-30% on water costs when switching from
fresh water to municipal reclaimed
wastewater for use in cooling towers.
Conversions have had many successes but also some failures. Those that have had good success
did proper planning, gathered good knowledge of recycled water quality, along with water
treatment chemical and non-chemical product performance, and implemented good water quality
monitoring and control. They more often than not have saved 10-30% of costs over fresh water
and more importantly obtained better protection of their water contacted equipment.

Before making any plans to convert an existing cooling tower water system to recycled water
these questions need to be addressed:
1 What is the cost of recycled water versus fresh water?
2 Will the recycled water need further treatment to be acceptable? If so, what costs are involved?
3 What is the cost to bring the recycled water to the cooling tower water system from your
"fence" line?
4 Will the water treatment cost of the cooling tower be increased or decreased with recycled
water versus current and how much?

5 Are additional water monitoring or feed systems needed and what are their costs?
6 Can you expect equal, poorer, or better protection of the cooling water contacted equipment
when on recycled water?
7 Is there any danger to using recycled water such as the potential for pathogens?
These questions can be answered usually by the recycled water provider, your water treatment
supplier or an independent water treatment consultant. Once answered, they will certainly
indicate if going to recycled water is desirable.
In answer to the above questions, typical examples of what have been obtained from numerous
recycled water candidates:
1 Recycled water costs are usually 35-55% of the municipality's fresh water costs and likely will
remain steady for several years. Fresh water costs are climbing each year. However a number of
power plants, petroleum refineries, and chemical plants use fresh water from lakes, streams, and
proprietary wells and only pay a pumping cost. In this case the recycled water costs were much
higher, reducing the incentive to switch. One power plant using river water selected to blend the
river water with recycled water 50/50 even though recycled water costs were higher. The driving
force was fresh water conservation for crop irrigation.
2 If the recycled water is not of sufficient quality for your facility and must be treated further to
be acceptable this cost must be identified. The municipality may provide the additional treatment
or it may be done at the facility.
This issue occurred at a West Coast Refinery that identified that further treatment was essential
for the local recycled water to be acceptable. The water contained over 10 ppm ammonia and
could have caused cracking of the refinery's copper alloy Admiralty 70/30 copper/zinc heat
exchanger tubes. The municipality elected to remove the ammonia from the recycled water to
less than 1 ppm which was acceptable to the refinery. The additional treatment cost did raise the
price of the recycled water but only 10-15%, making it still very worthwhile.
3 Cost of getting the recycled water to the cooling tower system varies for each facility. In a
chemical plant or refinery it could mean a new line 100s or 1000s of feet from the fence line. In a
HVAC building it means running a new pipe from the entrance to the cooling tower which may
be on the top of the building.
One West Coast refinery decided to put in plain unlined mild steel pipe to move recycled water
several thousand feet from the fence line. Plant operators found that the recycled water was so
corrosive that it generated unacceptably high iron levels in the recycled water (3-5 ppm as Fe)
before the cooling tower. Thus the cooling tower running at 5 cycles would potentially have 1525 ppm iron which would foul the heat exchangers. The refinery was able to eliminate iron
pickup by replacing the line with an internally lined mild steel pipe. That was a cost no one had
identified originally.

4 The water treatment cost with recycled water generally is the same or lower versus fresh water.
It can be lower due to the presence of 2-4 ppm phosphate in the recycled water which is a mild
steel corrosion inhibitor. Any phosphate-based cooling water treatment might get most or all the
phosphate needed. Also the presence of high chlorine in the recycled water (1-2 ppm free
residual) often reduces the chlorine or oxidant at the facility. Even if ammonia is reduced to
nitrates at 75-150 ppm, they also help reduce mild steel corrosion as well as stainless steel
corrosion. Generally most facilities will see a water treatment cost reduction of 10-20% but this
cost is very site specific.
5 Generally there is an increased need for monitoring and chemical feed systems, primarily to
cope with any variation in recycled water quality or if blending of waters is occurring. This
generally provides much better corrosion and deposit control in heat exchangers and chillers,
depending on the amount of monitoring used for the existing fresh water versus the recycled
water.
6 Protection of the cooling water equipment most often is equal to or better than with fresh water.
This means longer life and less maintenance for the cooling water contacted equipment. This can
be a big savings. The improvement can be attributed to several factors: perhaps the most
important is that greater attention and control is exercised with recycled water versus fresh water.
The increase in monitoring and chemical feed control also is a major factor in showing improved
performance of the water treatment program.
7 Is there any additional danger from pathogens with recycled water versus fresh water as
cooling tower makeup water? In all the cases we have been involved, several hundred, we have
never seen concerns of possible pathogens, which were tested for. This is very likely due to the
recycled water containing high levels of chlorine (1-3 ppm free residual). However it is always
wise to run tests for total bacteria levels as well as for the presence of Legionella bacteria, the
source of Legionnaires disease. Guidelines are less than 10 to the 4th ((10,00/cfu) for total
bacteria per colony forming units and essentially zero for Legionella.

Other Considerations
Each existing facility with a cooling tower water system is unique and a plan of action is needed
prior to switching to recycled water from fresh water for cooling tower makeup.

The first and initial knowledge needed is to determine the metallurgy of all water contacted
equipment as well as their operating characteristics. This includes towers, piping, and all heat
transfer units. Operators must also determine the maximum and average temperatures; the
average and minimum water velocities; if there is any stagnant or redundant equipment; and the
duration where no flow occurs. It is important to determine to what degree protection from
corrosion, deposits, and biological was needed with fresh water. This will provide guidance as to
what is needed with recycled water.
Different industries will have various designs and operating parameters that will require
addressing certain recycled water ingredients more that other industries.
Some examples would include petroleum refineries, which often use mild steel (1010-1020)
tubes and Admiralty brass (70% copper/30% zinc) tubes in their heat exchangers. The mild steel
tubes require very good corrosion control but are susceptible to phosphate deposits and to copper

plating. Excess phosphate and copper induced bimetallic corrosion can reduce life expectancy of
the mild steel tubes. The Admiralty tubes must not see more than a couple parts of ammonia due
to potential cracking.
Both HVAC and utility power plant cooling tower water systems generally use copper and
Admiralty tubes in their chillers and condensers and must limit the ammonia in recycled water.
HVAC systems often use galvanized steel cooling towers which can suffer from "white rust" due
to copper plating as well as high or low pH of the cooling tower water. HVAC cooling water
condensers often use enhanced (grooved) copper tubes that require improved copper protection.
The chemical industry uses stainless steel heat transfer surfaces and thus must limit the chlorides
which can cause pitting and stress corrosion cracking.
Each industry has unique designs and operations that need to be identified and evaluated to
prevent unexpected damage or reduced life expectancy resulting from various recycled water
ingredients.
For existing cooling tower water systems, the facility can change out various water contacted
equipment to handle the recycled water quality. However, this cost is very often undesirable. It
can be more cost effective for the water provider to treat the recycled water to meet the desired
quality.
Examples are the additional treatment to reduce phosphate by clarification and to eliminate
ammonia via nitrification. Even partial conductivity reduction via membrane technology such as
Reverse Osmosis (RO) is being done to provide better water quality not only for cooling tower
systems but also boilers.
The second important consideration is to identify the key ingredients in the recycled water to
determine if any will impact the cooling water contacted equipment in an adverse manner. Each
cooling tower system needs to review their recycled water and their system for a more accurate
determination of any adverse or beneficial impact.

Treatment Chemicals
There have been substantial advances in the performance of treatment chemicals and equipment
introduced over the last several years. It is important to understand the increased capabilities, and
limitations, of these products and systems. Most of the advances have been in deposit and
microbiological control yet corrosion inhibitors have also improved. Examples are with new
polymers for improved deposit control due to phosphate, iron, silica and hardness. Some are
identified as "Quad", "HPS-1", "succinates". and "polyaspartate" just to mention a few.
One facility was able to use recycled water makeup with over 80 ppm phosphate in their cooling
tower without any deposition. Another is carrying over 300 ppm silica with with no deposition.
Calcium hardness and other similar calcium scales are being treated with a combination of
solubilizing and crystal modifying inhibitors that result in a non-scale deposit. Biocides have

improved with chlorine dioxide now in liquid as well as pellets in addition to generation on site.
Hydrogen peroxide is being used more frequently, just to mention a few.
Corrosion control has seen polysilicates and polysilicate plus polyphosphate blends for good
mild steel protection with less phosphate deposits. Phosphate treatments are far better than earlier
versions when used with specific newer polymers. Copper corrosion inhibitors are available that
are more halogen resistant and even provide mild steel and aluminum corrosion control.
Membranes are being used to reduce all or some ions. High levels of ammonia can be removed
by specific ion exchange or nitrification or by carrying higher cooling tower pH levels. The use
of some non-chemical treatment systems show promise with some recycled waters for deposit
and biological control.
Essentially any recycled water quality can be treated in the cooling tower water system to handle
most corrosion, deposit, and microbiological problems with a combination of newer water
treatment chemicals and specific control equipment.

Failures With Recycle Water

Why have there been failures in the use of recycled water as makeup to cooling tower water
systems? Perhaps these several examples will illustrate some of the reasons:
One petroleum refinery was approached by a water supplier who offered recycled water
containing 8 ppm of ammonia (as NH3). The refinery uses Admiralty (70% copper/30% zinc)
tubes in their heat exchangers and knew that ammonia can cause catastrophic cracking to
Admiralty tubes, possibly resulting in a fire or explosion. The recycled water supplier did not
know this and refused to remove the ammonia. The facility has yet to consider the recycled
water.
Another facility with large HVAC chiller tonnage failed to understand that their enhanced copper
tubes required higher levels of copper corrosion inhibitor for good tube protection. Failure to
know this resulted in tube failures and discontinuation of recycled water usage. Operators and
the chemical supplier both blamed the "bad" recycled water. Several other HVAC users did the
research and have been using recycle water successfully with similar equipment.
Still another facility did about everything right with good planning, established effective
monitoring and control, modified their water treatment program correctly and found out that the
recycled water at the cooling towers was exceptionally high in iron (over 5 ppm). At 5 cycles of
cooling tower, the iron was 25 ppm and would have fouled heat exchangers. Additional water
treatment to control the iron would be very costly. They investigated and found that water
delivered to the plant perimeter had only 0.1 ppm iron. However, the recycled water had been
nitrified and had a pH of 6.5 and a high free chlorine level (2 ppm). It was very corrosive to the
mild steel pipe inside the plant, thus producing the high iron. The facility installed internally
coated mild steel and the iron level remained at 0.1 ppm at the towers. The pipe designer should
be working with the water treatment people.

Perhaps the most common failures in the use of recycled water has involved water treatment
suppliers and end users who do not have experience with recycle water -- the water treatment
program was not properly modified while the end user did not implement additional water
monitoring and control. They often say it is "bad" water.
About the Author: Paul R. Puckorius is President and CEO of Puckorius & Associates
(www.puckorius.com). He has over 50 years experience in cooling water, boiler water and reuse
water technology, specializing in corrosion, scale and microbiological problem solving,
treatment selection and system start-ups. He assists plants with system audits, cost reductions,
vendor specifications, reuse considerations, zero blowdown via softening, hazardous chemical
elimination, development of conservation programs and the optimum utilization of water and
chemicals.