The water in cooling towers is an ideal habitat for bacteria, including those that damage cooling systems and those that cause disease. The chemicals traditionally used to treat this water are also environmentally hazardous and are facing increasing disposal restrictions as municipalities become aware of their environmental impact. The Center has been working to develop better ways to treat the water used in cooling systems.

      Above and to the right is a prototype system developed by Center people to treat cooling towers with ozone. This system ran for two years without additional chemical treatment. Throughout this period the tower performed with increasing energy efficiency with no evidence of scaling or corrosion.

At left are a corrosion coupon rack and mild steel, copper and galvanized corrosion coupons used to obtain a quantitative measure of corrosion. For comparison, the coupons on the right are unexposed while those on the left have been exposed to cooling water for a year.