Designed and Manufactured by Smart Storm, The NeutraliZer™ is a wholly unique, mobile, in-line treatment plant, that uses CO2 to continuously neutralise high alkaline concrete washout water, this equipment is unlike any other product on the market.
The concrete wash water issue
The pH of concrete wash water from construction and building sites is highly caustic (pH 12-14), which makes it extremely damaging to the environment if discharged to the watercourse. It is also illegal to discharge without an acceptable pH level (usually 6-9). This also applies to concrete wagon washouts to sewer and surface drains, where it is usually illegal to discharge below pH 6 and above pH 10.
It is not practical to simply dilute the concrete washout with clean water, as 10,000 litres of clean water would be required to reduce 1 litre of concrete wash water down from pH 13 to pH 9. Standard practice in industrial effluent control uses acids, e.g., Hydrochloric, Sulphuric or Nitric to neutralise the caustic effluent streams via batch treatment.
Building and construction sites are often confined in working area, with many moving vehicles, and so use of acid for pH neutralisation is extremely hazardous, requiring safe handling and storage, and presenting considerable Health and Safety risks on site. These methods of pH balancing are usually static, require time consuming batch processing, occupy a large footprint, are labour intensive and are not very mobile.
CO2 as Concrete Washout Treatment
CO2 for pH balancing has been in use for other applications, but never used before to neutralise highly caustic concrete runoff on a continuous flow basis. Smart Storm dedicated many months to research and develop the In-line mixing technology, resulting in the innovative ‘NeutraliZer™’.
Standard methods of using CO2 to neutralise concrete wash water use a batch system where CO2 is blown into a tank; once the correct pH is reached CO2 is turned off, and the wash water released. This process is very basic, without any process control. This type of plant occupies a large footprint, and due to the batching process, it can only treat wash water in a non-continuous manner.
Smart Storm’s NeutraliZer™ was designed to provide a simple and efficient alternative to these methods and their inherent problems.
The NeutraliZer™ Inline Continuous Flow CO2 Treatment
The NeutraliZer™ works by first monitoring the caustic washout with Smart Storm’s USM pH meter, and based on these readings, carbon dioxide (CO2) is automatically dissolved into the wash water flow to reduce the pH to a safe level for discharge; all this happens on a continuous flow basis.
A flow meter monitors the effluent leaving the unit, which can treat up to 25m3 of wastewater per hour. CO2 dissolved in water is slightly acidic so is ideal for neutralising concrete wash water and it self-buffers so cannot overdose no matter how much is injected.
The Neutralizer™ comes with an IOT remote monitoring system as standard so the user can monitor 24/7 the status of the pH balancing and show compliance with logs and graphs to regulatory bodies, such as the EA, Natural Resources Wales and SEEPA.
The NeutraliZer™ is the only CO2 pH balancer on the market that offers all the following benefits: –
Key features
- Continuous processing system – advanced in-line mixer
- Skid-mounted and highly mobile – small footprint
- No hazardous chemicals or batch treatment
- Fully automated with alarm beacons (pH/out of gas)
- Rugged construction
- Simple to install and user-friendly – Plug and Go!
- In-built storage for 8 gas bottles
- Integral flowmeter
- Remote Cloud-based monitoring
- Up to 25m3/h flow rate
Applications
- Construction and building sites
- Concrete wagon wash outs
- Mining
- Quarrying
- Demolition sites
- Concrete paving and brick manufacturing
- Chemical and Pharmaceutical Industries
The Versatile NeutraliZer™
In addition to the Construction Industry, The NeutraliZer™ has been purchased by Pharmaceutical Manufacturers, and has also been successfully used as an emergency pH balancing unit for a large Scottish distillery which suffered a breakdown of its in-house pH balancing system. Due to its small footprint, it can fit quite easily into most effluent treatment plants. The unit can also be customised for balancing high acidic levels in wastewater.
This demonstrates further the versatility of the NeutraliZer™ as a mobile unit that can be deployed for emergency response for any industry with pH balancing requirements.
The NeutraliZer™ Manufactured by Smart Storm Ltd, is available to purchase directly from Smart Storm, or to hire from our partners Hydrainer Pumps. For more information contact Smart Storm – T: + 44 (0)1422 363462
or visit www.smartstormgroup.com
