Nalco Company
Chicago, IL
Gaurav Bhatia
Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago
Nalco Company has grown from a fledgling water treatment business to
a leading provider of integrated water treatment and process improvement
services, chemicals and equipment programs for industrial and institutional
applications.
The intern worked on several projects, focusing primarily on options
for increasing the condensate return and reducing the makeup water for
the facility boiler. Other projects included reducing steam consumption,
increasing boiler efficiency and reducing dumping of good condensate.
Result:
- The intern prepared AutoCAD drawings, showing the entire condensate
layout in process regions of the facility. These drawings can be used
for better understanding of system and for troubleshooting bad condensation.
- The intern identified the following opportunities to reduce waste
generation and improve energy efficiency:
- Several problems in the layout of the piping were identified and
the pipes were rerouted, achieving a cost saving of around $5,000
annually.
- Flow meters measuring condensate return were found to be faulty.
The facility change to a different flow meter system.
- With the new flow meters and other steps like trap replacement,
pump maintenance and piping changes, the condensate return rose
from 10 percent to 75 percent. This has the potential to save the
facility thousands of dollars a year in water and energy used to
create condensate.
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