One of Brazil’s state-owned water and waste treatment companies is engaged in the supply and treatment of water, and the collection and treatment of sewerage. Currently serving 226 cities of around 5.5 million people, the company is responsible for designing and building some of the state water supply and sewage systems, as well as operation and maintenance of existing facilities.

Although not one of the largest in Brazil, this local company has been recognised as leaders in investment in high social impact projects in this sector, and over the last 16 years has invested more than R $3.7 billion in water supply and sewage systems throughout the state.

As with all water and wastewater treatment facilities, the Brazilian sites employ many different pump types in their chemical metering and transfer applications. PC pumps featured extensively in clean water treatment, but were proving problematic, causing repetitive downtime due to abrasive wear, as well as low levels of accuracy, leaks and high costs in terms of pump maintenance and wasted chemicals.

Engineers from the Watson-Marlow Fluid Technology Group’s Brazilian office started working with company’s plant maintenance and installation teams six years ago, with the purpose of replacing the PC pumps which were suffering off-gassing and encrustation problems in fluoridation, disinfection, pH adjustment and pre-oxidation stages of potable water treatment.

The installation of multiple Qdos chemical metering pumps for handling chlorine, permanganate, hypochlorite and fluosilicic acid has prevented off-gassing and crystallisation issues, so significantly reducing downtime at the water treatment plant.Further savings include simple pump installation without ancillaries such as back-pressure valves, pulsation dampeners, degassing valves, foot valves, strainers and float switches. Qdos is self priming and self draining to keep operators safe during maintenance.

Simplicity of pump installation and operation is transferred to high flow fluid handling at the wastewater treatment plant too. Bredel and APEX hose pumps are now used to transfer aluminium sulphate, ferric chloride, sodium carbonate, polymers and lime. These chemicals had caused frequent abrasive wear problems and clogging in the diaphragm pumps previously employed for their transfer.

Specially formulated hose materials such as NR Endurance, can double service life of Bredel pumps in abrasive fluid applications such as this. Every Bredel hose is precision machined to ensure flow stability and pump performance in tough fluid handling applications.

Today more than 400 Qdos, Bredel and other lower pressure pumps from Watson-Marlow Fluid Technology Group minimise maintenance downtime and cut chemical use at the Brazilian water and wastewater treatment plant. WMFTG has offered ongoing project assistance throughout the specification, installation and commission phases.

Rogerio Melo, Sales Engineer responsible for this impressive result in Brazil, pointed out that “Our qualified and constant technical support has been essential to enhance customer confidence and to make this a successful installation”.