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Clean water is a scarce commodity. Nordic Water Products is an expert in cleaning water. In actual fact, the principle is simple. The water is filtered through sand and is cleaned. The sand which is pumped through the pipe is also continuously cleaned.
The problem lies in the enormous wear to which the pump pipe is subjected. In the past, the pipe was made of stain-less steel, and it was simply eroded away by the sand.
Moreover, the material is affected by a multitude of chemical solutions, i.e. the dirt which is filtered out.
Detail
of the air-lift pump pipe of Wirsbo-inPEX
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The
water to be treated is connected into the inlet distributor (1),
then flows up through the sand bed in which it is cleaned, and
leaves the filter through the outlet (2). The contaminated sand
is transported from the bottom hopper (3) by means of an
air-lift pump (4) to the sand washer (5).
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After stainless steel, tests were run on various grades of rubber, with
polyethylene coating on the inside. Although this avoided corrosion, new problems arose. In addition to production problems, wear and defects were difficult to diagnose.
The useful life was 2-5 years, depending on the pump loading.
When the pumps were upgraded, the pipe material was reviewed again.
Wirsbo-PEX pipes were not entirely unknown, since they are approved for domestic water distribution.
The material was therefore of interest.
But the fact that Wirsbo-inPEX could produce the pump pipe to a given design was something new.
A prototype was made and was sent around the world.
The success was enormous, and the useful life is now 10 years instead of the earlier 5 years. The demand for clean water is constantly growing.
Nordic Water uses high-tech solutions that are based on simple principles. Do you have simple things that are difficult?
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