WWRF Aeration Piping and Room Walls

Condensation Control, Safe Touch, Aerolon, Perma-Shield

When the City of Williston, North Dakota built their new wastewater reclamation facility their Consulting Engineer, AE2S, turned to the coating experts at Tnemec Company for general painting and sulfide resistant liners, like Perma-Shield. As part of the facilities treatment process aeration basins were needed. Aeration is the process by which air is circulated through, mixed with or dissolved in a liquid or substance.

Aeration brings water and air in close contact in order to remove dissolved gases and to oxidize dissolved metals, including iron, hydrogen sulfide, and volatile organic chemicals (VOCs). This process is typically the first major process at drinking water treatment plant, and occurs in the secondary treatment processes of activated sludge treatment in wastewater treatment plants. An evenly distributed oxygen supply in an aeration system is essential to effective wastewater treatment for fostering microbial growth.

The air used for this process is often heated and the Engineer was concerned about not only worker safety around the aeration blower equipment but condensation on shared walls with the aeration sludge tanks. To combat these issues AE2S elected to specify Tnemec's Aerolon insulation coating. This is a directly bonded to the substrate corrosion resistant insulation powered by Aerogel particles. With a single coat of Aerolon at 50.0 mils DFT the "feels like" temperature of substrates up to 350F can be lowered below what OSHA considers to be a safe touch surface. Inversely, 2-3 coats of Aerolon totaling 100-150 mils DFT can mitigate condensation and the development of corrosion. AE2S elected to use this strategy having the Contractor install 50 mils of Aerolon on all of the piping and with 100 mils on the walls. For color coordination all of the Aerolon was finished with Enduratone from Tnemec.

Check out these additional resources on wastewater and water treatment coatings

MBR Basins

Severe Wastewater Testing for Coatings

Ductile Iron Surface Preparation

Engineers- Specifying High Performance Coatings

Coatings for Wastewater Facilities

Don't miss these wastewater and water treatment coating project profiles

Howard Berry Water Treatment Plant