WHO Good Manufacturing Practices – Water for Pharmaceutical Use

This GSA Proving Ground (GPG) project assessed the performance of three alternative water treatment systems (AWT) for cooling tower water treatment applications at the Denver Federal Center (DFC) in Denver, Colorado. Cooling towers are commonly applied to water cooled chilled water plants in medium to large commercial buildings and are the point in the system where heat is dissipated to the atmosphere through the evaporative cooling process. Cooling towers also consume a large amount of water. Cooling tower related water consumption is one of largest potable water loads within buildings in the United States, with over 26% of water use associated with heating and cooling. Reducing water consumption is a priority for the General Services Administration (GSA) due to Executive Order 13693, Energy Policy Act of 1992, and regional water shortages. These factors have brought about the investigation of cost effective opportunities to reduce water use, such as AWT technologies for cooling towers. The current state of water treatment in GSA buildings is to use conventional chemical based cooling tower water treatment to maintain cooling tower water quality and contract out this specialized service to a third-party company specializing in such service.

For an industrial company using a cooling tower for its facility, some type of cooling tower water treatment system is usually necessary to ensure an efficient process and lengthy equipment service life.If cooling tower water is left untreated, organic growth, fouling, scaling, and corrosion canreduce plant productivity, cause plant downtime, and require costly equipment replacements down the road.