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Anonymous Poster

Active carbon sanitization

06/28/2007 10:19 AM

Does anyone have any suggestions on a good chemical to sanitize an active carbon bed? I have a water plant fitted with an active carbon bed after softeners. The carbon bed is becoming a source of bacteria growth and I would like to sanitize it. any suggestions? Heat is not possible due to the design of the plant.

Thank you in advance

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Power-User
United States - Member - USA Engineering Fields - Control Engineering - Never enough money

Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Oregon
Posts: 292
Good Answers: 4
#1

Re: Active carbon sanitization

06/28/2007 11:17 AM

Sodium Bicarbinate would be the safest method that would not exhaust the carbon bed. You should also look at setting up a backwash schedule for the vessel, start at once a week or when the differential pressure exceeds 10 psi.

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Anonymous Poster
#2
In reply to #1

Re: Active carbon sanitization

06/28/2007 3:53 PM

The carbon bed currently has a backwash set-up for 75 m3 flow, approximately every 4 days. The carbon bed is used for Chlorine removal before the water going to a RO for purified water generation. Bacteria count is very low before the bed, approx 4 cfu, after the bed it is >200. I have tried a few chemicals but none have managed to kill the bacteria.

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Power-User
United States - Member - USA Engineering Fields - Control Engineering - Never enough money

Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Oregon
Posts: 292
Good Answers: 4
#3
In reply to #2

Re: Active carbon sanitization

06/28/2007 10:55 PM

Look through this companies site "Avista Technologies". I use several of their products and they have great customer support.

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Power-User

Join Date: Dec 2006
Posts: 441
Good Answers: 20
#6
In reply to #2

Re: Active carbon sanitization

06/29/2007 11:15 AM

This may not be possible in your design but most large volume bottling plants (such as Sunkist in central California) use UV sterilization as the first stage of bacterial and viral remediation. I Googled UV water sterilization systems and found hundreds of suppliers. Perhaps one of these vendors can supply a system which will help eliminate your bacterial contamination problems. PS these systems are often found in the surplus "food and beverage machinery/equipment" sales areas in eBay and Google.

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intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them ~ Einstein
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Anonymous Poster
#8
In reply to #6

Re: Active carbon sanitization

07/02/2007 5:29 AM

The carbon bed has a break tank in front of it that is dosed with Sodium Hypochlorite to kill any bugs that come in the supply water. Unfortunately due to a failure in the dosing, some got in and they appear to have colonised the carbon bed. We have a UV down stream of the RO so I know noting is getting out to the storage tank and tests prove this. I just need to kill what is currently in the carbon bed.

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Associate

Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Newport Beach, California
Posts: 49
#4

Re: Active carbon sanitization

06/28/2007 11:06 PM

Have you tried washing with a hypochlorite solution or some other chlorine-containing solution? Or could you possibly steam-out the bed with high-pressure (and thus high temperature) steam?

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Milton Beychok
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Anonymous Poster
#9
In reply to #4

Re: Active carbon sanitization

07/02/2007 7:27 AM

The function of this carbon bed is to remove Chlorine. The carbon bed has a break tank in front of it that is dosed with Sodium Hypochlorite to kill any bugs that come in the supply water. Unfortunately due to a failure in the dosing, some got in and they appear to have colonised the carbon bed. As the function of the unit is to remove Chlorine I do not think it possible to use Sodium Hypochlorite to sanitize it. Also as mentioned in the initial post, due to the design of the plant it is not possible to use heat to sanitize this bed.

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Power-User

Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 101
#5

Re: Active carbon sanitization

06/29/2007 7:53 AM

What about using salt (sodium chloride) solution? It is used to regenerate water softners and also works as a desinfectant.

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Associate

Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Newport Beach, California
Posts: 49
#7
In reply to #5

Re: Active carbon sanitization

06/29/2007 6:31 PM

Slong:

Salt (sodium chloride) as a disinfectant? Where did you learn that?

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Milton Beychok
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Anonymous Poster
#10

Re: Active carbon sanitization

07/02/2007 7:31 AM

Has anyone used Oxonia? This is a mixture of Hydrogen peroxide and peracetic acid. It is used as a disinfectant and sanitizer.

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Associate

Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Colombia
Posts: 44
#11

Re: Active carbon sanitization

07/03/2007 3:11 PM

It may be time to replace the bed. Depending on operating type (continuous/batch), undesirables content amount (concentration), fluid flow and other factors, the active carbon bed gets saturated. If not the case, backwashing is the normal procedure.

It is known that any halure as salt of its respectively oxacid will kill the bacteria (such chlorine, bromure, etc.), such as NaClO (not NaCl). Only be careful this bactericide will not affect the quality of your fluid downstream.

SaC.

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