Engineered Around the Water. Designed Around the Process.

A successful water treatment system starts long before equipment is selected.

It starts with understanding the water.

Where does it come from? What does it contain? How much is required? What does the process need from it? What happens to the water afterwards? And what happens when production demand changes, an instrument fails or a treatment stage goes offline?

At Hydra-Clear, water treatment design is an engineering discipline.

Our systems are designed in-house around the complete process requirement, from incoming water source through treatment, storage, distribution, recovery and discharge.

We don't simply assemble standard equipment and connect it together.

We engineer the complete water system.

Start With the Requirement

Before designing a treatment plant, we establish what the system actually needs to achieve.

That can include:

• Incoming water chemistry
• Required treated-water quality
• Minimum, normal and peak flow rates
• Daily water consumption
• Production schedules
• Available water sources
• Storage requirements
• Distribution pressure and velocity
• Redundancy requirements
• Existing plant interfaces
• Available electrical and mechanical utilities
• Waste and drain capacity
• Automation requirements
• Regulatory or validation requirements
• Future production expansion

These parameters form the basis of the process design.

Equipment selection comes afterwards.

The Complete Water Cycle

Industrial water treatment rarely consists of one machine.

A properly engineered system may need to consider the complete movement of water through the facility.

Water Source

The first consideration is where the water comes from.

This could include:

• Mains water
• Borehole water
• Surface water
• Recovered process water
• Condensate
• Multiple blended sources

Each source presents different treatment challenges.

A borehole containing iron, manganese and hardness requires a very different treatment philosophy from chlorinated mains water feeding a pharmaceutical RO system.

The water analysis determines the process.

Pretreatment

Pretreatment protects downstream equipment and prepares the water for the main purification process.

Depending on the application, this may include:

• Multimedia filtration
• Iron and manganese removal
• Activated carbon
• Water softening
• Microfiltration
• Ultrafiltration
• Cartridge filtration
• Chemical dosing
• pH correction
• Dechlorination
• Antiscalant dosing

Pretreatment is selected according to the actual feedwater chemistry and downstream process requirements.

Purification

The main treatment stage is designed around the required product-water specification.

Technologies can include:

• Reverse osmosis
• Nanofiltration
• Ultrafiltration
• Ion exchange
• Deionisation
• Electrodeionisation
• UV treatment
• Fine and sub-micron filtration
• Chemical conditioning

Where several technologies are required, they are engineered as one integrated treatment process rather than a collection of individual packages.

Storage and Distribution

Producing the correct water quality is only part of the design.

It then has to be stored and delivered correctly.

Hydra-Clear designs treated-water storage and distribution systems considering:

• Tank capacity
• Peak demand
• Turnover
• Recirculation
• Pump duty
• Distribution pressure
• Pipe velocity
• Dead-leg minimisation
• Materials of construction
• Temperature
• UV treatment
• Point-of-use filtration
• Hygienic design requirements
• Duty/standby operation

For critical applications, the distribution system can be just as important as the treatment plant itself.

Recovery, Reuse and Discharge

Water leaving a process does not automatically have to become wastewater.

Where practical, we assess opportunities to recover and reuse water within the site.

This can include:

• RO concentrate recovery
• Process rinse-water reuse
• Condensate recovery
• Wastewater filtration
• Membrane recovery systems
• Reuse as utility water
• Reduction of incoming mains-water demand

The objective is not simply to maximise recovery at any cost.

The objective is to identify where water can be recovered reliably and economically without compromising the process.

In-House Process Engineering

Hydra-Clear's design capability covers the complete treatment process.

Depending on project complexity, our engineering documentation can include:

• Statement of Requirements
• User Requirement Specifications
• Process Flow Diagrams
• Piping & Instrumentation Diagrams
• General Arrangement drawings
• Hydraulic calculations
• Water balances
• Membrane projections
• Pump selections and curves
• Vessel sizing
• Pipe sizing and velocity calculations
• Instrument schedules
• Valve schedules
• Equipment datasheets
• Control philosophy
• Cause-and-effect schedules
• Functional descriptions
• Electrical interfaces
• Operating and maintenance documentation

These documents are not produced simply to make the project file thicker.

They define how the system is supposed to work.

Process Design

Our process engineers determine the treatment sequence required to turn the available feedwater into water suitable for the customer's process.

That means understanding the chemistry rather than simply choosing equipment from a catalogue.

We consider parameters including:

• Hardness
• Alkalinity
• Conductivity
• Chloride
• Sulphate
• Silica
• Iron
• Manganese
• Turbidity
• Suspended solids
• Organic loading
• Microbiological risk
• pH
• Temperature

From there, the treatment process can be modelled around the required water quality and operating conditions.

Hydraulic Design

A treatment process can be chemically correct and still perform badly if the hydraulics are wrong.

Flow rate, pressure, pipe diameter, velocity, pump selection and pressure loss all form part of the system design.

We consider:

• Minimum and maximum flow
• Peak instantaneous demand
• Pump operating points
• System resistance
• Pipe velocity
• Pressure losses
• Vessel service flow
• Backwash requirements
• Recirculation flow
• Distribution pressure
• NPSH requirements
• Duty and standby philosophy

Pumps are selected against the actual system duty rather than simply on nominal flow.

Mechanical Design

The mechanical design has to make the treatment process practical to manufacture, operate and maintain.

This includes consideration of:

• Materials of construction
• Equipment access
• Valve accessibility
• Instrument positioning
• Membrane removal
• Filter replacement
• Maintenance clearances
• Drainage
• Sample points
• Lifting requirements
• Skid layout
• Pipe support
• Transport and installation constraints

A plant that works on a P&ID but cannot be maintained properly is not a good design.

Controls and Automation

Modern water treatment systems generate a significant amount of process information.

Hydra-Clear incorporates control and instrumentation into the engineering process from the beginning.

Systems can include:

• Siemens PLC control
• Siemens HMI interfaces
• Flow monitoring
• Pressure monitoring
• Differential pressure
• Conductivity
• pH
• ORP
• Temperature
• Tank level
• UV intensity
• Chemical dosing control
• VSD pump control
• Automatic duty/standby changeover
• Alarm management
• Data logging
• Remote monitoring
• BMS integration
• SCADA integration

The control philosophy determines how the system responds during normal operation, abnormal conditions and equipment failure.

It should therefore be designed alongside the process rather than added at the end.

Designed for the Application

Hydra-Clear designs water treatment systems across a broad range of industrial applications.

Borehole Water Treatment

Borehole water can offer significant reductions in mains-water consumption, but groundwater chemistry can vary considerably between sites.

Treatment systems can be designed for:

• Industrial process water
• Potable water production
• Utility water
• Boiler make-up
• Cooling applications
• Reduction of mains-water dependency

Treatment may include iron and manganese removal, filtration, softening, disinfection, membrane treatment and conditioning depending on the analysis.

Pharmaceutical & Hygienic Water Systems

Pharmaceutical, healthcare, cosmetic and other hygienic manufacturing environments require particular attention to materials, system design, documentation and microbiological control.

Systems can incorporate:

• Reverse osmosis
• Duplex RO
• Hygienic instrumentation
• UV treatment
• Fine filtration
• Treated-water storage
• Recirculating ringmains
• Sanitisation systems
• Controlled point-of-use distribution
• Appropriate documentation and validation support

The system architecture is developed around the required water specification and applicable quality requirements.

Boiler & CHP Water Treatment

Boiler and Combined Heat & Power installations can require significant quantities of treated make-up water.

We design systems for both low and high-pressure boiler applications, including:

• Water softening
• Reverse osmosis
• Demineralisation
• Chemical dosing
• Feedwater storage
• Condensate recovery
• Make-up water control
• Boiler-water optimisation

Correctly engineered feedwater treatment can reduce scaling risk, chemical consumption, blowdown and energy losses.

Industrial Process Water

Manufacturing processes often have requirements that fall somewhere between mains water and ultra-high-purity water.

We design treatment systems around the actual production requirement rather than unnecessarily over-treating the water.

Applications include:

• Food and beverage
• Chemical manufacturing
• Engineering
• Electronics
• Automotive
• Defence
• Energy
• General manufacturing
• Wash and rinse systems
• Cooling systems
• Ingredient and formulation water

Water Recovery & Reuse

Increasing water cost and environmental requirements are making recovery projects increasingly attractive.

But reuse has to make engineering and commercial sense.

We assess:

• Water chemistry
• Contaminant loading
• Variability
• Required recovery quality
• Treatment complexity
• Waste generation
• Energy consumption
• CAPEX
• OPEX
• Payback

This allows the recovery process to be assessed against the real operating cost rather than simply chasing the highest possible percentage reuse.

CAPEX Is Only Part of the Design

The cheapest treatment plant to buy is not always the cheapest treatment plant to own.

Our design process considers both capital expenditure and operating expenditure.

That includes:

• Energy consumption
• Water efficiency
• Chemical consumption
• Salt consumption
• Membrane replacement
• Filter replacement
• Wastewater generation
• Labour
• Maintenance
• Cleaning requirements
• Spare parts
• Equipment life

Sometimes increasing the initial capital cost slightly can produce a considerably lower whole-life operating cost.

Where appropriate, we evaluate those options during design.

Design for Redundancy

For many industrial sites, losing treated water means losing production.

Reliability therefore needs to be designed into the system.

Depending on the criticality of the application, systems can incorporate:

• Duty/standby pumps
• Duplex treatment trains
• Duty/assist operation
• N+1 equipment philosophy
• Automatic changeover
• Emergency bypass arrangements
• Buffer storage
• Alarm escalation
• Critical spare strategies

The correct redundancy philosophy depends on the consequence of failure.

Design for Expansion

Today's water requirement may not be tomorrow's.

Where future production growth is expected, systems can be designed with expansion in mind.

That may mean:

• Additional membrane capacity
• Modular treatment trains
• Larger common pipework
• Spare PLC I/O
• Expandable MCCs
• Additional tank connections
• Future pump capacity
• Space for additional equipment

Planning for known expansion during the initial design can be considerably less expensive than redesigning the complete system later.

From Design to Manufacture

One of the advantages of in-house engineering is that our involvement does not end when the drawings are issued.

The same design information follows the project through:

Concept → Process Design → Detailed Engineering → Manufacture → Testing → Installation → Commissioning → Handover → Service

Our manufacturing team builds from the engineering documentation.

Our commissioning engineers commission against it.

And our service engineers can refer back to the original design when maintaining or troubleshooting the plant later in its operating life.

That continuity matters.

Design Review

We actively encourage customer involvement during the engineering phase.

Design reviews allow both Hydra-Clear and the customer's engineering team to consider:

• Process performance
• Plant interfaces
• Layout
• Controls
• Maintenance access
• Instrumentation
• Operating philosophy
• Future requirements

It is considerably easier to move a valve on a drawing than after the pipework has been fabricated.

Engineering Beyond Handover

Our relationship with a treatment system doesn't have to finish when it leaves the workshop.

Because Hydra-Clear also provides service, maintenance and optimisation, we see how treatment systems perform years after they were originally designed.

That feedback influences how we engineer new systems.

Accessibility, maintainability, instrumentation and component selection matter because eventually somebody has to operate and maintain the plant.

Quite often, that somebody is one of our own engineers.

We Engineer Water

Hydra-Clear brings process design, mechanical engineering, controls, manufacture, commissioning and service together within one water treatment company.

Whether the project involves a small process-water skid or a complete site water treatment infrastructure, the philosophy remains the same.

Understand the source.

Understand the process.

Understand the requirement.

Then engineer the water system around it.

Talk to a Water Treatment Engineer

If you are planning a new water treatment system, replacing existing plant or reviewing how water moves through your manufacturing site, speak to Hydra-Clear.

Send us your available water analysis, required treated-water quality and flow requirements and our engineers can help establish the appropriate treatment philosophy.

Call 0800 999 6770 or contact Hydra-Clear to discuss your project.