Save water at industrial premises

The machinery and plant in your business can be a major contributing factor to your water use. Looking closely at the plant you use and how water is used within them will highlight which you could modify to make them more water efficient.

Liquid ring vacuum pumps use a continuous supply of water, typically heated to 15 degrees Celsius, to provide a seal. You can make significant water savings by reusing wastewater for this process, and by cooling the seal water.

Typically, businesses that have equipment that needs to be cooled will connect their equipment to the main water supply and use this as a 'once through' process, discharging the used water into a drain. You can make substantial water savings by reusing water to provide the cooling.

You can use refrigeration units, air blast chillers and evaporation towers to cool the water. Also, if there is significant heat build-up as the water is used, you can recover this heat with a heat exchanger.

Cooling towers generally need to use make-up water to replace blowdown or evaporation. The amount of make-up water needed depends on the cooling load required. Minimising the cooling load will reduce the use of fresh water as make-up water.

The cooling towers your business may use also lose water as mist or spray. You can install optimised automatic blowdown control, which will use this spray loss to clean your cooling tower of solid deposits, saving water overall.

You may be able to make significant water and cost savings by using heating and cooling systems efficiently, see water reviews, policies and action plans.