Before executives started monitoring wastewater discharges and long prior to it being popular to be “green” in your process, a Swedish company named Wirsbo partnered with a Minnesota based water treatment company to unravel both a method wastewater problem and develop a system to recycle the method water.
Wirsbo, set up in 1694 in Sweden is most renowned for its world leading in floor glowing heat tubes. Wirsbo manufactures its tubes thru a robotic extrusion process, cooling the tubes in water troughs fed twenty-four / seven by the androids.
Due to the high temperature, and the open air trough, the cooling water in the trough was black and oily, with a burning odour. The trough itself had string algae 1-2″ thick on the sides. Minnesota Water Treatment arrived with ionization and oxygenation technology in 1996 to design and develop a chemical free system.
Wirsbo has a fifty year guarantee on their tubes, the utilization of chlorine or other chemicals degrade the life of their product. Tests after cooling, in chemically treated water were employed and were the same. Chemicals weren’t an option! Minnesota Water Treatment not only solved the “black water” cooling trough issue, a recirculation system was eventually developed permitting water to recirculate thru sixty ton EVAPCO cooling towers and chiller bundles later on.
“In addition to the extraordinary black water on install, it was determined that fusaria and nematode infestations to the cooling trough water existed as loading dock doors authorized these common spores to go into the open trough water on each robotic process line.”
Wirsbo implemented programmable controllers and an ionization test on each shift to stop reappearance of the microbes.