VietNamNet Bridge - A Vietnamese company has developed electromagnetic field technology to get rid of sludge and debris in pipelines and boilers.

 

Dregs in pipelines reduce the thermal efficiency of cooling towers, chillers and boilers, which result in higher required energy and fuel costs.

As for water pipelines, dregs reduce the flow capacity, create red rust and cause bad odors which harm people’s health.

According to Le Hieu, deputy director of Hozentech, a technology firm, dregs are generated from heat conversion of dissolved solids in water into insoluble substances. They cling on the surface of products.

The most common types of dregs include calcium carbonate, calcium sulfate and silicon residue. Their heat conductivity is hundreds of times lower than metals. 

Therefore, when dreg layers form, they reduce the system’s heat exchange capacity, thus requiring higher volumes of fuel. 

They will also cause a series of other problems – causing machines and equipment to break down and shortening machines’ lifetime.

Therefore, dregs not only reduce the heat exchange capacity in the system, but also have a potential risk of failure, reducing the lifespan of machinery.

One year ago, when Hieu examined the condenser of a seafood processing factory in Dong Thap province, he discovered a dreg layer, about 2mm thick in the system.

Previously, the factory had to pay VND163 million for electricity bill a month. However, it now has to pay VND31 million a month more, or a 19 percent increase, for electricity use.

A 60 KW boiler at a garment company in Dong Nai province also found a 1.5 mm dreg layer, for which it had to pay 15 percent more for electricity use.

After the dregs were removed, the company reportedly now can save VND10 million a month because it can reduce the electricity volume consumed.

To date, physical and chemical solutions have been applied to settle the problem. However, the measures are costly, unsafe, and time consuming.

Scale Doctor, a technology product using electromagnetic wave instead of chemicals, created by Hieu and his co-workers has been welcomed.

The system can create an induction electromagnetic environment inside pipelines with the frequencies of 3-32 Khz which change 20 times within one second.

Scale Doctor can provide sufficient energy to ionize water and the substances that cause dregs, thus making the substances unable to cling to the pipelines. 

Since the technology does not change the chemical properties in pipelines, it will not affect the equipment or human health.

Kham Pha