ELGA Process Water's system provides cost savings for paint manufacturer
The Client
Pro-Spray Automotive Finishes Ltd is making a major contribution to sustainability, environmental protection and health & safety by developing a water based automotive refinishing paint.
The Requirement
Every bit as important as the paint pigment is the quality of the water used as the base, and Pro-Spray require bacteria-free, deionised water of conductivity less than 10µS/cm. In order to ensure water quality, Pro-Spray purchased de-ionised water in 1000 litre IBC containers. Due to the lead time from their supplier, they found it necessary to purchase IBCs in batches of six with the result that valuable storage space was occupied by deionised water.
In researching ways to ensure the consistency of their paint, Pro-Spray found that storing bulk quantities of demineralised water could result in contamination issues. ELGA Process Water proposed an on-site demineralisation plant to produce water of the specified quality as and when required, eliminating the need for storage and ensuring that this problem would never arise.
The Solution
ELGA Process Water installed a MiniRO™ reverse osmosis plant. The treated water is collected in a tank from which it is pumped through a UV disinfection unit, a cartridge filter and a Service Deionisation (SDI) cylinder to produce deionised water of better than 0.5µS/cm conductivity. This is delivered to the points of use on the manufacturing line via a ring main.
The system has a smaller footprint than that of storing IBCs and, because deionised water is produced on demand, there are no issues with deterioration of quality during storage.
Whilst Pro-Spray's main objective was to ensure that their deionised water quality specification could be consistently met, they were pleased to find that the new plant is saving them approximately 25p per litre of water compared to the cost of buying IBCs and this will give a payback on the capital cost of the plant in less than two years.
