some of our specific innovations are listed below:
WEST was the first to discover that Rohm & Haas's WTP-1, the first terpolymer marketed for water treatment applications, had excellent cooling water calcium phosphate stabilization properties. Since Rohm & Haas had engineered the product for boiler water treatment they were unaware, and somewhat skeptical, of this very unique and valuable property. The product went on to become the standard polymer for stabilized phosphate cooling water treatments for many years. WEST used this material for several years, until an improved product came along in the form of B.F. Goodrich's Goodrite K-798. Rohm and Haas still sells much WTP-1 as Acumer 3000 and Acumer 3100. It is interesting to note that the poor thermal stability of all terpolymers make them an uneconomical choice for boiler water applications.
Working with Los Alamos engineer staff, WEST developed a cooling water silica control treatment that has been used in their LANSCE division (TA-53) for about five years with excellent results.
WEST developed a new way of treating geothermal steam to remove large amounts of H2S and SO2. This was patented by our client, Mission Power, and successfully marketed to a number of facilities in the Geysers area of Northern California.
WEST also completed a project for Morrison-Knudsen Construction in Zaire, Africa. The project involved developing very large-scale chemical cleaning procedures and products for power plant cooling tower systems in Kinshasa and Kolwezi. The cleaning was necessitated because of corrosion product fouling that had occurred during a time when these systems were under the "care" of a very large U.S. water treatment company-now owned by a French company. Morrison-Knudsen is no longer involved, but we still treat the cooling water systems under a Belgian management firm. Results since our involvement have been excellent.
Most of our cooling water systems have been developed using a very sophisticated pilot cooling water system that we have run continuously for approximately the past 10 years. This system is used to evaluate new raw materials as they come on the market-usually of an organic nature. This pilot system has also been used for several studies on the use of reclaimed sewage water for cooling tower makeup. One of these was for the Los Angeles County Sanitation District (the Carver-Greenfield project), and another for Paramount Petroleum in Paramount, California.
Of the regional water treatment companies, we are always one of the first to evaluate new chemicals and equipment that come on the market. This has consistently given us a leading edge on application technology and resulted in WEST having one of the best technical reputations in the business.
