At a Glance:
Chemical salts are not complete without industrial applications for water treatment. Be it the purification of impurities, balancing pH levels, or softening to carry out various chemical reactions, salt is used in all these ways. This blog incorporates its importance in industrial applications and how the salts are prepared. In turn, the salt industry contributes toward water treatment solutions.
Introduction to Chemical Salts in Water Treatment
Chemical salts, usually sodium chloride, calcium chloride, and magnesium sulphate, are some of the most important constituents in water treatment. Water is an essential component in industrial processes, whose quality is of utmost importance in order to maintain operational efficiency. The chemical salts change the nature of water through chemical means and make it useful in several industries-whether cooling systems, boilers, or more significantly, in production lines.
Salts of chemicals have many uses in water softening, pH balancing, coagulation, and disinfection processes. The salts play a number of roles in industries that do not have the ability to maintain the quality of a water system and remain functional without the addition of these salts. When salt levels are low, it is expected that there will be malfunctioning of equipment, inefficiencies, and regulatory issues.
Why Are Chemical Salts Used in Water Treatment?
Water Softening
The most common application of chemical salts applied to water is the softening of the hardness in water. High levels of calcium and magnesium present in hard water make buildup on pipes and machinery, resulting in decreased equipment efficiency and increased maintenance costs.
Water softening is necessary for industrial activities such as power generation, manufacturing, and food processing, as sodium chloride removes the ions of calcium and magnesium in ion exchange systems to descale by replacing them with sodium, which prevents scale formation and long equipment lives.
pH Correction
Industrial procedures need a suitable pH level. Salts from chemicals maintain the pH level of water, which should remain within a desirable range for specific applications.
For acidic water, sodium bicarbonate is added to increase its pH, and sodium bisulfate adds the pH of water, which is alkaline. The ability to control pH comes in handy in pharmaceutical applications also as well as textile industries where controls are quite essential.
Coagulation and Flocculation
Chemical salts are mainly applied in coagulation and flocculation. Coagulation and flocculation are a way of purifying water by removing impurities. The very small particles clump together because of aluminum sulfate (alum) or ferric chloride; the clumps are called flocs, and these are removed through filtration.
This is a very important process in wastewater treatment. Wastewater pollutants may be eradicated from water using the assistance of mining industries, oil refining industries, etc.
Disinfection
Sodium hypochlorite, a general salt, is used in disinfection, which removes harmful bacteria and microorganisms from industrial water systems. Since in many industries, water is recycled, like in the case of cooling towers, disinfection is very important to avoid contamination.
How Salts Are Made?
Chemical salts for industrial purposes are synthesized via one of the following processes:
Evaporation from Seawater:
Saltpans harbour seawater in such large quantities that, under the effect of the sun, it evaporates, and sodium chloride crystals are left behind. This method is mainly utilized in regions with plentiful seawater to manufacture salt.
Rock Salt Mining:
Rock salt is mined underground but then purified for impurities. This can be industrially used in the large amounts needed for bigger industrial salt-making operations.
Chemical Synthesis:
Some salts, like calcium chloride, are synthesized by chemical reaction. This process has made possible the production of very pure salts, such as most of the salty substances used in industries nowadays.
The Salt Industry Provides Chemical Salts for Modern Water Treatments, and innovations in production throughout the years have resulted in excellent quality and effective salt solutions.
Industrial Applications of Chemical Salts in Water Treatment
Cooling Towers
Cooling towers are applied in electrical power generation, chemical production, and HVAC systems for heat removal from industrial processes. Waters used in cooling towers are always prone to capturing impurities that build up with time and cause scaling, corrosion, as well as biological growths.
Chemical salts, such as sodium chloride and sodium hypochlorite, have been applied to treat cooling tower water so that the precipitate formation of scales does not occur and microbial growth is inhibited. Proper treatment of water in the cooling towers will make the heat exchange more efficient; thus, the risk of equipment failure can be minimised.
Boiler Feed Water Treatment
Feedwater that is utilized within a boiler needs to be treated, especially in the generation of electricity and in manufacturing, where steam is used in the process. This ensures that chemical water treatment salts keep feedwater free from impurities, which usually cause corrosion and scaling inside the boiler.
The compound most widely used for the removal of hardness in boiler feedwater is calcium chloride while the remover of dissolved oxygen causing corrosion is sodium sulfite. Chemical salts used for the feed treatment of boilers also maintain both their efficiency and their lifespan. It decreases instances of downtimes or shutdowns and associated costs.
Wastewater Treatment
Most industries produce wastes that contain suspended, solid, organic, and heavy metal pollutants. Chemical salts are used in wastewater treatment processes to remove these contaminants in order to ensure that the water does not exceed environmental discharge standards.
In industrial industries, aluminum sulfate and ferric chloride are used for coagulation and flocculation processes to remove suspended solids and organic matter from wastewater. The salts make industrial activities environment-friendly and thus compliant with any environmental regulation.
Desalination
It is a process where salts and minerals present in seawater or brackish water are removed in order to produce fresh water. Salts of chemicals are used at different steps of desalination, like pre-treatment and post-treatment, for good efficiency and safety of the process.
Add sodium chloride in reverse osmosis to prevent the precipitation of scale onto membranes, and calcium chloride and magnesium sulfate for remineralization of desalinated water in order to make it safe for industrial applications.
Environmental Impact and Sustainability
With the increasing emphasis of industries to be more eco-friendly, chemical salts used for water treatment purposes in the last three decades have also come under environmental scrutiny. Many companies have adopted eco-friendly practices to minimize footprints in nature related to water treatment.
-
- Biodegradable: Some of the salt materials can easily dissolve in water and get decompose within a number of days, such as sodium chloride, which seems to hold minimum adverse impact on the environment. Hence, such salt material is favored by industries with respect to sustainability in water treatment methods.
- Chemical Use Minimization: New technologies such as membrane filtration and ion exchange systems for water treatment make a whole range of applications where chemical salts are no longer required. Optimizing these systems also reduces the salt dependency of the industry and, by and large, minimizes the impact on the environment.
- Sourcing and Production: The sodium salts within the industry are also taking it forward with sustainable sourcing and production of chemical salts. For instance, some firms changed the production method of salt to solar evaporation to diminish the energy footprint as well as the carbon footprint from the production method.
Future Trends in Chemical Salt Usage for Water Treatment
Chemical salt usage in water treatment is likely to undergo a change as industrial demands increase for more efficient and sustainable solutions. This shift is seen in the newly emerging trends discussed hereunder:
- Green Chemistry: The new emerging area in water treatment is to produce chemical salts with minimal impact on the environment as green chemistry. Those salts are designed to have the same efficiency without producing much waste and pollution.
- Advanced technologies: The involvement of AI and IoT in water treatment systems is allowing the efficient usage of salts. It reduces waste and ensures that the salts get used to their optimal potential in treating water, optimizing all processes involved.
Conclusion
Chemical salts are very crucial in the treatment of water in industrial applications and have a very substantial role in various applications, including water softening, pH adjustment, coagulation, and disinfection. Chemical salts ensure that water, as applied to industrial systems, is clean, safe, and efficient, preventing equipment damage and ensuring the system meets stipulated standards.
Salt industry companies are continually improving on the chemical salts supplied to industries to meet the requirements of today’s modern water treatment process. Sustainability shall be the horizon towards which developments in the future will mainly occur, in a shift away from harmful salts and towards new treatment technologies.
Want good industrial salt for optimizing your water treatment processes? Elchemy has a wide variety of industrial salts to ensure that your water systems will run at total capacity through sustainable, compliant solutions.
