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With growing
concern over the effectiveness, costs, storage, handling and disposal of
various types of water treatment chemicals, it not surprising to find more and
more property managers seeking non-chemical alternatives to their corrosion
problems. As a result, a wide variety of products based upon magnetic,
electromagnetic, electrostatic, or other more mysterious quasi-scientific
transformations of water’s molecular structure are available to those who
are interested.
Most products advertise
almost total corrosion and scale control with little or no maintenance or power
needs. Some require yearly "regeneration" of the magnets or energy
sources. The absence of any reliable evidence of effective corrosion control by
such alternative technology generally leaves vendors of such gadgets to rely
solely upon "client testimonials" as well as elaborate and often
confusing theories of chemistry and physics to prove their
claims.
Magnetically based devices are, by
far, the most common types of non-chemical water treatment devices promoted.
Some are claimed to work based upon the principle that they precipitate out
scale, and the water based causes of corrosion, while others maintain it in
solution. Some devices are packaged with centrifugal separators or sand filters
to capture the theoretically precipitated out water
impurities.
Certain devices claim to not
only reduce corrosion activity, but to remove existing deposits as well. Before
and after photograps of pipelines heavily constricted and then free and clear
of all deposits is a common promotional tool. Most impressive, in many
examples, are the volume of glowing testimonials from major name corporations.
Review an article on
this subject.
Such products,
due to the fact that they generally displace effective corrosion control
efforts during the time in which they are in use, have the potential to cause
significant damage to a piping system in as short a period as even a few
months. For that reason, CVI strongly recommends following an intensive
corrosion monitoring program during the six month to one year trial period most
manufacturers of such devices recommend.
We recommend
great caution in considering any form of corrosion control outside the
established chemical treatment programs. Any new technology should be treated
with great skepticism, and its implementation preceeded with a well monitored
trial at a less critical piping system, if possible. While we have documented
corrosion coupons as being generally unreliable at producing a corrosion rate
estimate similar to what is actually occurring at the pipe's surface, they do
offer benefit in showing short term corrosion attack, and therefore may
minimize the negative effects of a worthless or fraudulent
product.
Our concerns toward non-chemical
treatments exclude ultraviolet (UV) sterilization, ozone water treatment, and
cathodic protection, which, though having limitations to their effectiveness,
have been long proven in the field, in scientific theory, and for very specific
uses.
Most of
today’s gadgets center around the proposed phenomenon of transforming the
molecular structure of water so that it becomes non-corrosive and non-scaling.
Electromagnetic fields, permanent magnets, or some variation thereof, are
generally proposed as the method by which such molecular transformations can be
made. In a review of over 60 scientific investigations of such commercial
claims, however, no evidence has ever been identified supporting either their
principles of operation, or their resulting scale and corrosion control.
While there is
always the possibility that modern technology will someday provide a better
solution to today’s corrosion problems, products which are based upon any
of the following theories and arguments should be seriously questioned:
- Products which
claim to operate on newly discovered scientific principles, although not
accompanied by recognized technical support literature.
- Products which
operate in contradiction to the established laws of physics, chemistry and
thermodynamics.
- Products which
manufacturers claim perform on principles of science not yet having of an
official explanation.
- Processes for
which the resulting by-products or active components cannot be
measured.
- Products which
claim to "energize" or "transform" the molecular structure of
water through magnetic, electromagnetic, electrostatic or unknown physical or
chemical phenomena.
- Products which
only offer written "testimonials" from other clients as the sole proof
of their effectiveness.
- Any device
which operates using a permanent magnetic force or minimum electrical
input.
- Processes for
which the manufacturer claims there is no current technology available to
measure its status of operation and effectiveness.
- Any mechanical
device, isolated from the water stream, which claims to change water pH,
chemical content, molecular structure, or other physical
characteristic.
- Any mechanical
device, isolated from the water stream, which claims to kill bacteria, algae,
and other microorganisms.
- Devices which
offer corrosion control during extended periods of winter lay-up by energizing
or magnetizing the piping system.
- Devices which
require high cycles of concentration of water as part of their corrosion
control process. High cycles, in fact, reduce corrosion naturally by forming
calcium carbonate scale over the metal surface - thereby creating another form
of deposit problem.
- Manufacturers
which claim standard scientific methods of corrosion measurement are not
applicable to their corrosion control processes.
- Products which
claim to eliminate one or more chemical components of scale or corrosion
without any providing some method of physical
removal.
- Devices which
claim to protect an entire condenser water system by only treating a small
percentage of the water through a side stream loop.
- Devices which
claim to precipitate scale forming minerals into non scale forming crystalline
deposits in the cooling tower pan.
- Devices which
claim to remove dissolved corrosion and scale forming impurities from the
circulating water stream by centrifugal separation alone.
Once again, a
non-chemical water treatment program based upon some magnetic or other
principle should only be initiated after a thorough evaluation of the
background, history, references, laboratory test data, and actual field reports
for the proposed process is completed. A walk through inspection of a working
installation and in-depth discussion with its operating personnel should be an
absolute requirement before any consideration of such a device for corrosion
control purposes.
Careful testing is
critical in all cases, and the decision of whether to abandon or continue with
a particular treatment device should be not be swayed by client testimonial and
promises when hard data shows otherwise.
©
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