Microbial fouling characteristics of the alternating elliptical axis tube

Abstract:

[Objective] For the study of the deposit pattern of the microbial fouling attaching on the surface of the heat exchanger, the deposit properties represented, respectively, through the alternating elliptical axis tube and pure tube were discussed by experiments. [Methods] The scheme was framed by taking iron bacteria as the strain, which is refined and purified from the natural Songhua River. In this work, the fouling dynamic simulation system was invited, together with the contrast experiments mean, it helped to achieve the influence analyses of fouling formation preformed by iron bacteria with the change of the flow rate and variation of water quality parameters under the industrial environments. [Results] The results demonstrated that, due to the increasing the flow turbulence caused by the alternating elliptical axis tube, the fouling precipitation amount in the alternating elliptical axis tube was less than that in the pure tube; moreover, the higher the flow rate was, the lower of the average precipitation amount of iron bacteria in the heat exchanger tube was. In addition, two parameters, including working fluids’ pH in the alternating elliptical axis tube and electrical conductivity, would increase first, and then tended to be stable; whilst the other parameters, involving the Fe2+, COD, DO’s content would show the decline tendency along with the accumulation of microbial fouling. [Conclusion] In general, the anti-fouling capacity of the alternating elliptical axis tube is superior to the pure tube, and the formation of the microbial fouling does have evident and remarkable effect on the water quality parameter of cooling water.