How to Measure Bacteria in Metalcutting Coolant — and When to Act
A metalcutting coolant that smells like rotten eggs on Monday morning is already in serious trouble. The hydrogen sulphide odour is produced by anaerobic bacteria that have been multiplying in the sump over the weekend, without agitation, in the absence of oxygen. By the time the smell is obvious, bacterial counts are in the billions […]
What Happens When You Run a Boiler Monitoring System Without a Sample Cooler
Every boiler feedwater and steam condensate analyser on the market — including the Pyxis Guardian IK-2000 series — specifies that it must be installed downstream of a sample cooler. This requirement is stated prominently in the installation documentation, with operating temperature limits of 40–49°C at the sensor inlet. In practice, sample coolers are frequently omitted […]
The Consequences of Running a Cooling Tower Above Its Maximum Cycles of Concentration
Cycles of concentration is one of the most important parameters in cooling tower operation. It determines how much mineral content builds up in the circulating water relative to the makeup water, and it directly controls both water consumption and the risk of scale and corrosion. Most operators know they should monitor it. Far fewer understand […]
Why Conductivity Alone Is Not Enough to Control a Cooling Tower
Conductivity control is the foundation of every cooling tower water treatment programme. It keeps dissolved solids from concentrating to the point of scale formation, and it triggers the bleed-and-dose cycle that maintains chemical treatment levels. It is necessary. It is also not sufficient. A cooling tower controlled only by conductivity is a system that manages […]
Why Real-Time Boiler Water Quality Monitoring Is Not Optional — Conductivity, pH, Dissolved Oxygen, and Hardness Explained
A boiler that runs on poor-quality feedwater does not announce the problem immediately. The damage accumulates quietly — inside heat transfer surfaces, in the steam distribution system, at turbine blades — until it manifests as a tube failure, a forced shutdown, or an efficiency decline that has been building for months. The four parameters that […]