The time when water from a well or borehole could be safely consumed is long gone. Even the springs of areas remote from megacities are unsafe for he alth. This is explained by the serious environmental situation associated with the pollution of water resources around the world. The difficulty lies in the fact that water can penetrate almost everywhere, no matter how the harmful production wastes are conserved, not to mention the cases of their direct release into the water area. Therefore, the use of purifiers and water softeners is vital today.
General information about installations and purpose
Water softening is necessary if its increased hardness is observed. These are the cases when an excess of calcium and magnesium s alts in the liquid is obvious and is manifested by the appearance of plaque on the heating elements: the coils of kettles, boilers, washing machines. The reason for the hardness of water is its contact with various rocks.soil rocks, in particular, with chalk and dolomite.
To solve the problem, softeners were developed - a set of equipment and reagents that remove excess s alts from water. It is wrong to assume that water softeners completely remove hard elements from it - this is unacceptable, in particular, and because of the daily need of the human body for a certain amount of them. Therefore, a quality installation leaves a certain percentage of s alts allowed by sanitary standards for water.
A continuous plant is technically more complex than a conventional batch water softener. It is applicable in cases where water supply is required continuously, such as water softening plant for boiler house, food industry, non-ferrous metallurgy, petrochemical, thermal power plants.
Operation principle
The chemical process that takes place in a continuous water softener is based on the replacement of magnesium and calcium ions dissolved in water by sodium ions at the moment the liquid passes through the resin ion-exchange layer. When the resource of the latter is depleted (depletion has occurred), and it can no longer soften the water, the resin layer is saturated with a solution of sodium chloride.
All continuous water softeners are divided into two categories, differing from each other by the principle of operation. These are the so-called twin and duplex systems.
- Twin equipment contains two cylinders, a common water control unitstreams and a single s alt reservoir. Cylinders operate in a queue mode, and each of them provides the performance required by the consumer in full. While one cylinder is softening, the second is in regeneration mode, that is, the reagent structure is restored, and then goes into a standby state when the filtration cycle of the operating cylinder is completed. Then everything changes places and the cycle repeats.
- The duplex system works differently. Here, two cylinders start the filtration mode at once, each of which has its own s alt reservoir connected. The entire process is controlled by a three-way valve. Both cylinders provide full performance, one - only half. Therefore, when one of the softeners' filtration cycle ends and it switches to regeneration mode, the system's capacity drops sharply by half. After the restoration of the ion-exchange resin, the water is again softened by two cylinders. Then the cycle repeats, but with a different softener.
Equipment
Installations of continuous water softening of different models have a typical design with the following basic elements:
- Filtering containers in the form of cylinders with ion-exchange resin. Untreated hard water is supplied there, softened water comes out.
- S alt tanks - are used for regeneration (recovery) of the ion-exchange resin after the end of the filtration cycle.
- Controller - controlling the process of switching the fluid flow. It is, in fact, a computer with a built-inwater flow meter that sends signals to the multi-way valve.
- Drainage distribution system.
- Filter element based on cationite-sodium strong acid resin in gel form.
- S alt reagent for regeneration (sodium chloride) tablet or granular.
- Hard particulate filters that are placed before the water softener.
- Shutoff and distribution valves for connecting the unit to water pipes.
Rules for connecting to water supply
- The water softener must be placed on a hard, flat surface of the room with acceptable humidity and temperature standards.
- The place of connection of the unit to the system should be at the inlet of the water supply immediately after the accumulator and pressure tank, if provided. There should be a sewer pipe entry nearby.
- The connection of the equipment to the general system should not be carried out directly, but through a bypass line where a shut-off valve is installed in order to be able to supply water of the initial state to the consumer when the equipment breaks down.
- All irrigation taps are cut in before the water softening installation, taps for sampling - both before and after the equipment.
- The water pressure of the system at any time of the day should not exceed the level of 6 atmospheres. To ensure this condition, it is recommended to supply the line with a reducer installed at the input in front of the equipment.
- Pressurethe water supply must be no less than the declared one to ensure that the system is flushed in fast mode.
- The overflow outlet pipe must be connected to the sewer through a separate line, not connected to the wastewater outlet of the system flush.
- Effluent to the sewer must be organized through a hydrobarrier in order to exclude the possibility of gases from the sewer entering the room and the softening plant.
- It is recommended to connect the electrical circuit of the cleaning equipment to the network through a stabilizing device.
Water softener installation: instructions
In order for the equipment to work properly and serve properly, some operating rules should be observed:
- Use only granulated, tableted or edible table s alt without iodine in the s alt tank.
- Maintain the level of the s alt layer, which should not fall below the water level.
- Remember to refill the s alt tank at least once a month.
- Perform periodic loosening of the s alt mass in order to avoid caking of the material.
- Clean reagent cylinders from sediment masses at least once or twice a year.
- Monitor the correctness of the electronic scoreboard with regards to time and date.
- Monitor the quality of water after cleaning and softening, and in case of deterioration in performance, adjust the regeneration settings.
Specifications
Parameters by which you should choose the installationiron removal and water softening, are displayed in the characteristics of a particular installation model. In summary, they look like this:
- Declared plant capacity in cubic meters per unit of time.
- Possible pressure drop at nominal and peak performance.
- The volume of filter tanks in liters.
- Required dosage of s alt for a single regeneration in kilograms.
- Duration of the regeneration process in minutes.
- Power consumption of electricity by the system.
Water requirements
Different water quality requires the use of different purifiers and softeners. Equipment in each case is selected individually. But basically, widely used plants are used to convert water, which must meet the following requirements:
- general hardness index - no higher than 20.0 mmol/liter;
- total s alt content is not higher than 1000.0 mg/liter;
- color index - no higher than 30, 0 degrees;
- no sulfides and hydrogen sulfides;
- active chlorine in the free state - not higher than 1.0 mg/liter;
- permanganate oxidizability - not higher than 6.0 mg O/liter;
- no oil products;
- amount of suspended solids – no more than 5 mg/liter;
- total iron - no higher than 0.5 mg/liter;
- working temperature - not lower than 5 °С and not higher than 35 °С.
Conclusion
Automatic water softenersare designed in such a way that the process of their operation is clear to the consumer, but nevertheless, when purchasing such equipment, it is advisable to discuss the conditions for the maintenance of the system with qualified specialists.
