Study of the performance of physical water treatment with a solenoid coil to prevent mineral fouling. Part 1: Effect of a side-stream filtration

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of physical water treatment (PWT) with a solenoid coil on the fouling prevention in a heat exchanger with cooling-tower water. Five different tests were conducted in a concentric-tube heat exchanger at 12 cycles of concentration: no-treatment, PWT only, PWT plus 10% filtration, PWT plus 40% filtration, and 10% filtration only. A small flow velocity of 0.83 m/s and a high heat flux of 22.5x104 W/m2 were chosen to accelerate the fouling in the heat exchanger. The fouling resistance in the case with PWT plus 40% filtration was approximately 78% less than that in the no-treatment case.