Why Chemical Dosing Systems Can Be Complex & What You Can Do To Solve This
Let’s start from the beginning
Chemical dosing systems are essential for delivering precise chemical injection across diverse processes, including municipal and industrial water treatment and the control of specific industrial applications. While crucial, the design and operation of these systems can be inherently complex, often necessitating significant engineering effort, regular maintenance, part replacements, and even layout redesigns due to the common occurrence of leaks. Understanding these challenges, this article first examines the factors driving the need for safety equipment around dosing pumps and how this contributes to complex and leak-prone piping. Let’s delve into it and understand why the DICE™ dosing technology, a significant advancement in chemical dosing system engineering, offers one of the best solutions to these long-standing issues.
The Need for Chemical Feed Systems
Explanation
The need for a chemical dosing system comes from one thing and one thing only: your process requires chemical addition. It may need chemical continuously, transitionally or only under specific circumstances.
Chemical Dosing Pump: the Core of the Application
The center piece of your chemical dosing system is the chemical dosing pump. It’s the motorized element which generates the chemical flow in the chemical feed system, resulting in the right volume being introduced in the process.
Various types of pumps are available and selecting the right one for your application is critical.
Not all pumps will perform equally nor be economical for a given application: this greatly depends on the chemical, flow and pressure.
Essential Accessories of a Liquid Dosing System
In order to offer versatility while making the pumps reliable, safe, redundant and efficient, your application should include the following components:
Pressure relief valve:
• Protects the system from overpressure
Back pressure valve/ Non-return valve:
• Allows for a constant pressure on the pump discharge and prevents the process from returning to the make-up unit or leaking on the floor (in the case of a tube rupture on a peristatic pump)
Note: The peristaltic pump being sensitive to its outlet pressure, the back pressure valve is set at a lower pressure than the process pressure. Therefore, the valve only acts as an extremely efficient non-return valve.
Pressure gauge:
• A key element of the systems, serving two functions:
During the system commissioning, the pressure gauge is used to set both the back pressure and the pressure relief valve.
Following the system start-up, the pressure gauge serves as the primary indicator of the system’s operation and can act as a valuable tool for troubleshooting.
Pressure gauge isolator:
• Using its diaphragm, serves as a protective layer between the pumped chemical and the metallic pressure gauge. Therefore, prevents any undesirable chemical damage to the pressure gauge.
Ball valves:
• Used for pump calibration, isolation and other functions
Calibration column:
Allows for:
• Initial & periodic calibration of your metering pump
• Visual validation of the actual chemical volume added to the process (an essential troubleshooting feature)
• Troubleshooting
Challenges in Chemical Metering Systems with These Accessories
Integrating the above accessories brings two main challenges: leaks and complexity
How Leaks from Joints Can Impact Chemical Dosing Skids
• Potential liabilities
• Health and Safety risks
• Warranty claims
• Cost of repairs
• Liquid damage
• Downtime
Leaks typically occur at the many system’s glued/welded and threaded connections. They can significantly reduce the useful life of the system, increase the OPEX and pose a serious health and safety risk.
Chemical leaks damage not only the systems but also the facility and its environment. Here we have an emergency eye wash station that was corroded to the point of not being functional and needed replacement. This was the result of a small sodium hypochlorite leak: a simple example that illustrates the indirect material damage that can result from chemical leaks.
Why Chemical Metering Systems Can Be Complex
• Custom design
• Specific procedures
• Labour intensive
• Design
• Fabrication
• Assembly
• Complex troubleshooting
• Susceptible to gas locking
Integrating the few essential accessories can quickly create highly complex chemical dosing systems. Not only are they complicated to design, fabricate and integrate, they can also be confusing to operate and troubleshoot.
How to Design a Chemical Feed System that Overcomes These Challenges
By Integrating the DICE™ Solution
The DICE™ patented solution addresses the leak and complexity challenge by integrating all the essential components inside a single chemical-resistant block.
The dosing module intention is to overcome the many design challenges of conventional systems, such as: poor quality of the piping connections, many potential leakage points, excessive vibration caused by the pump pulsation (which leads to mechanical fatigue on connections and components) and the unjustified large footprint required.
Key Benefits of DICE™ Chemical Dosing System
DICE™ has no threaded or glued connections, and it has a 50% smaller footprint than any regular liquid chemical dosing solution. Learn more about the six major benefits it brings to the industry next.
1. Minimized Footprint
• 2 times smaller than a traditional skid system
• Extremely compact
• Maximum size module only 14.8” x 10.59” x 9.16”
2. Enhanced Reliability
› Limiting leaks
• No onsite service required
• Minimizing maintenance cost
• Reducing contingency on projects
• Ensuring health & safety
• Limiting downtime
3. Ease of Operation
• Intuitive design
• Troubleshooting within seconds
• Vertical configuration, minimizing gas lock condition (see next page)
• Minimal volume to pressurize the system (see next page)
• Minimal downtime, replacement in minutes
4. Standard Solution
› One simple box product:
• Only a few models for all applications
• Purchasing and logistics made easy
• Shipping within 48 hrs* for urgent needs
• Ease of commissioning and offsite troubleshooting
• Specifiable product
› Saving:
• Design time
• Labour on fabrication, assembly and management
• Onsite services & no specific tools
*For urgent requests, on all currently stocked DICE™ dosing modules
5. Vertical Configuration
The DICE™ vertical configuration facilitates the evacuation of gas in the system, thereby avoiding the tendency of gas being trapped. This is even more important for highly degassing chemicals such as sodium hypochlorite and hydrogen peroxide.
6. Pressurized Volume
Having a minimum pressurized volume is critical to system reliability, precision and performance. DICE™ ½’’ has an extremely small pressurized volume of 5 in³ before the back pressure valve. Same for the DICE™ 1’’ with a pressurized volume of 12 in³ before the back pressure valve.
Choosing the Right Chemical Dosing System to Reduce Leaks and Complexity
The DICE™ module can be one of the best ways to overcome the complexity challenge and limit leaks when precise dosing chemical is required, while offering many innovative features to simplify installation and daily operations.