The Importance Of Regular Descaling for Industrial Chillers and Condensers

Condenser and Chiller Descaling

Condensers and chillers can break down without proper maintenance and care. They both transfer heat from liquid to liquid. They’re designed to minimize heat transfer loss and maximize efficiency. Without regular maintenance, lime, rust, and scale will collect on the waterside of the exchanger – resulting in a loss of efficiency in your heat transfer as well as possible damage to the condenser and chiller.

With our Descaler’s, there’s no need to worry about dismantling or removing the condenser and chiller units before descaling. Our Tempcon’sDescaler is industry leading and leads the market in low corrosion rate.

What is a Chiller?

A Chiller circulates chilled liquid through process equipment. The chilled liquid can be water or a formulated refrigerant. The purpose of a Chiller is to provide cooling to other equipment or to an area.

Most industrial equipment will have inefficiencies over time. Heat is a common byproduct of an inefficient piece of equipment and can cause damage over time when it accumulates. The chiller’s job is to remove heat and cool down equipment. The heat can be routed through the chiller and expelled outside or in a designated area.

What is a Condenser?

A condenser is the cooling unit inside of a chiller. They are a type of heat exchanger and can be classified by what kind of refrigerant or liquid is used to perform the cooling. Typically, we see scale build-up on the inner wall of the condenser. This will affect the efficiency of the heat transfer by increasing the condensing temperature. Resulting in an increase of energy-use and a decrease of cooling capacity.

Condenser and Chiller Descaler Instructions

1. Bypass condenser or chiller from operation.
2. Remove the existing water in the condenser or chiller. This must be done to ensure proper results.
3. Disconnect the water in/out connections from the condenser or chiller.
4. Attached the necessary hoses to the water in/out connections on the condenser or chiller to a circulation pump and a circulating tank. (See drawing in downloadable instructions for cleaning set up.) Refer to our chart for necessary circulation time/set time and the amount of our Descaler to be used.
5. Circulate the Descaler for 20 minutes, then turn the circulating pump off and let the Descaler sit for another 20 minutes. Repeat this process for the total amount of time listed on the chart.
6. After the first 20 minutes of circulating time, check the pH of the Descaler with a pH meter or pH strips. Before use, our Descalers have a pH between 0 and 1. If the pH rises to around 3 or 3.5 after the first 20 minutes, add more Descaler to lower the pH to around 1. Continue this process through the duration of the circulating time shown on the chart below. When the pH of the Descaler stays the same, there should be no more scale present, so the condenser or chiller should be cleaned.
7. Pump or move the spent Descaler into another container. If the Descaler still has a pH around 1-3, use the Descaler for another cleaning.
8. After removing Descaler from the condenser or chiller, flush the condenser or chiller with water to remove all debris and remaining Tempcon’sDescaler. If you want to completely neutralize the condenser or chiller, add sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) to the water while circulating. Add a ratio of ½ pound of sodium bicarbonate to 25 gallons of water.
9. Once you have neutralized the condenser or chiller, disconnect the hoses from the circulating pump and circulating tank. Reconnect the water inlet and outlet to the condenser or chiller