CASE STUDIES
Rapid Water Technologies' patent-pending nanobbuble generators can improve water use and increase efficiency across a variety of industries including, schools and universities, hospitals, food and beverage processors, pharmaceutical manufacturers, hospitality and entertainment venues, municipalities, data centers, agriculture suppliers, commercial buildings, retailers, and more.
Luxury Hotel
Domestic Hot Water
Process Water
Toothpaste Manufacturer
Pool Owner
Commercial Building
Luxury Hotel
"It was a massive overhaul to our system... We have fewer calls, fewer equipment breakdowns, less wear and tear, and more consistent chemical tests." ~ Mike Mosele, Director of Engineering for Amway Grand Plaza
"It was a massive overhaul to our system... We have fewer calls, fewer equipment breakdowns, less wear and tear, and more consistent chemical tests." ~ Mike Mosele, Director of Engineering for Amway Grand Plaza
Nanobubbles Create Dramatic Decrease in Room Calls, Increase in Heat Transfer for Century-Old Luxury Hotel
Nanobubbles Create Dramatic Decrease in Room Calls, Increase in Heat Transfer for Century-Old Luxury Hotel
Problem: The Amway Grand Plaza is a luxury hotel comprised of a collection of historic buildings and the more modern glass tower, an icon in the Grand Rapids skyline. With original structures dating back more than a century, few rooms have identical layouts, and many the building’s disparate mechanical systems are comprised of 100-year-old black pipe. The hotel’s water chemistry has been a constant challenge to maintain “Black pipe and water are not friends,” says Mike Mosele, Director of Engineering for the Amway Grand Plaza.
On a hot summer day, the hotel’s maintenance team would field 65-70 calls from guests whose rooms were too hot. The solution often required a staff member to access and change out heat pump hoses in the ceiling. “Going into the ceiling is a lot of work,” says Mike. “Our staff would be miserable on hot days. Beyond the labor, it’s also a lot of wear and tear on the building itself to be constantly fixing those areas.”
The hotel would occasionally become so overwhelmed that it hired an outside contractor to change heat pump hoses during the hottest weeks of the summer.
Solution: Rapid Water Technologies installed a side-stream 2x3 Nanobubble Generator on the hotel’s Baltimore Air Coil spray cooling towers. Water from the tower helps cool the closed loop system that serves the guests rooms. The patent-pending technology transforms existing noncondensable gases into millions of nanobubbles/ml of water. As the nanobubbles flow through the system, they destroy biofilm, remove existing deposits and disrupt future growth.
Results: Mike observed visible deposits starting to break up within 24 hours of the Nanobubble Generator being installed. “You can’t see inside your system,” says Mike. “But over the course of four years, the system has done what it’s supposed to do, and it hasn’t stopped.”
As the nanobubbles removed biofilm, heat transfer dramatically improved, allowing the hotel’s systems to work more efficiently. The cooler water going into the chiller dropped from more than 90 degrees, down to approximately 75 degrees. “Everything is working less hard,” says Mike. “We have fewer calls, fewer equipment breakdowns, less wear and tear, and more consistent chemical tests.”
Before long, the drop in room calls was “astronomical” according to Mike. Instead of 70 daily maintenance calls in the summer, the hotel now has just 2-3 each day. He’s pleased about alleviating room calls – both from a cost avoidance standpoint and because the staff no longer has deal with them. “Staffing is hard these days,” says Mike. “Good business leaders are thinking of ways to make their lives easier.”
The results from the Rapid Water Technologies Nanobubble Generator have allowed the hotel’s technicians and staff to focus on preventative maintenance instead of reactive maintenance. “It was a massive overhaul on our system,” says Mike. “I’m confident that it’s working. It’s doing its job and helping us do a better job.”
Domestic Hot Water
Nanobubbles Prevent Maintenance Headaches, $17,000 in Yearly Cleaning Costs for One WMU Apartment Building
Problem: In early 2021, Western Michigan University opened its newest student housing building, Arcadia Flats, an apartment-style living center with 197 units. Within weeks of the first residents moving in, the WMU facilities team was dealing with maintenance issues caused by building’s poor water quality. Strainers, valves, fixtures, and other equipment were frequently plugging. The tube bundles within heat exchangers were fouling just 7-10 days after being cleaned, causing reduced heat transfer and driving up energy costs for the building. In addition, residents on the top floors would begin complaining about the lack of hot water, and an easily observable pressure drop would occur.
"The bundle would close to the point of failure if we didn’t clean it every 10 days or so,” says Stephan Macomber, WMU’s Supervisor in Maintenance Services. “Whenever we pulled the head off for cleaning, the diameter of the tubes would be 3/8” or less.” Standard chemical treatments did little to improve the building’s water issues.
"The bundle would close to the point of failure if we didn’t clean it every 10 days or so,” says Stephan Macomber, WMU’s Supervisor in Maintenance Services. “Whenever we pulled the head off for cleaning, the diameter of the tubes would be 3/8” or less.” Standard chemical treatments did little to improve the building’s water issues.
Solution: Macomber decided to pilot a test with Rapid Water Technologies, installing a Nanobubble Generator on the building’s domestic hot water system in July 2021. The simple, sidestream installation required only the smallest model, the Nanobubble Generator H2O1X1, to treat the water flowing through the building’s steam-to-hot-water recirculation system.
Results: Ten weeks after installation of the Nanobubble Generator, the heat exchanger tube bundles have not fouled once, and there have been no pressure drops in the system. The presence of nanobubbles has naturally softened the water and prevented calcium buildup. Recently installed valves have stayed clean and older valves have become cleaner over time.
Instead of cleaning the bundle every 10 days, Macomber anticipates that it will become a yearly chore -- preventing more than $17,000 annually in equipment cleaning costs alone. Even better, the maintenance team has yet to receive a single call to service the building’s hot water since installing the Nanobubble Generator.
Future: Domestic hot water for the entire WMU campus falls under Macomber’s purview, and he’s passionate about making sure students have plenty of it. After witnessing the benefits of the Arcadia Flats pilot, he plans to add Rapid Water Technologies Nanobubble Generators to domestic hot water systems in student housing facilities across campus. In addition, new pilots are being planned for other nanobubble applications, such as closed loop shell-and-tube and plate-and-frame heat exchangers.
Process Water
RWT Nanobubble Generators Create Significant Process Cooling Improvements at West Michigan Compounding
Plastic extrusion company West Michigan Compounding operates five 24/7 production lines and a sixth R&D line. Each line has its own recirculating water bath where strands of extruded plastic are cooled before entering the pelletizer. The water baths are filled with recirculating water from the company’s enclosed cooling tower system, which also cools the extruder barrels. In December 2020, Maintenance Manager Dave Doolittle added a Rapid Water Technologies (RWT) 2” x 3” Nanobubble Generator to the cooling tower process water, plus a “booster” ¾” x 1.5” Nanobubble Generator to one of the water baths. Within a matter of weeks, this infusion of nanobubbles into the process water created significant improvements for West Michigan Compounding.
Reduced Downtime: Previously, the production lines experienced frequent downtime from overheating. Since the RWT Generators have been installed, the lines’ heat exchangers have been cleaner, increasing their heat transfer coefficient. Because of this, the water baths have maintained cooler, more consistent temperatures and there have been NO occurrences of overheating.
Cleaner Production Lines: In the past, each line required nine hours of labor quarterly for cleaning, which involved harsh chemicals and putty knives. Now, a single employee uses a non-abrasive, non-chemical scrubber to complete the same task in 20 minutes. The annual savings on this task alone is estimated at $16,000. The production lines also maintain a clearer, cleaner state for months. Prior to the RWT Generator installation, lines were dirty again just two weeks after cleaning.
Extended Equipment Life: Doolittle expects the greatest ROI on RWT Generators to come from the long-term savings on replacement equipment. West Michigan Compounding replaces pumps, motors, heat exchangers and other parts frequently – roughly every 2-3 years at up to $12,000 for each piece of equipment. Just prior to installing the RWT Generators, one of the heat exchangers was reaching the end of its life. The company purchased a replacement, but several months later has yet to install it, because the heat exchanger returned to state of efficient and acceptable operation after the RWT Generators were installed.
Increased Quality & Higher Production Volume: In addition to causing equipment to overheat, excessive water temperatures produce defective pellets that have to be scrapped. With more consistent temperatures in its water baths, West Michigan Compounding is experiencing less scrap and higher production rates.
Reduced Scaling: The flow of nanobubbles in the company’s process water is removing existing scale and preventing the buildup of new scale. Doolittle sees evidence of this is in the water bath screens, which are now filtering scale that has broken loose from inside equipment hoses. In addition, past scaling required that extruder tanks be manually cleaned with an acid – a process that poses safety hazards for employees. With nanobubbles now flowing through these tanks, no such cleaning has been required.
Decreased Chemical Use: Already, West Michigan Compounding has reduced its $3,500 monthly chemical budget by 25% without any loss in efficacy. Doolittle aims to continue slowly reducing chemical use and monitoring the results, with the expectation of a 50% overall reduction in chemical use.
Energy Savings: Initial results show a 15° drop in the cooling tower’s operating temperature just 10 days after installation. Because the installation took place during Michigan’s winter months, West Michigan Compounding expects to see even greater energy savings during the hot summer months.
Impressed by these initial results, Doolittle plans to add “booster” Nanobubble Generators to the water baths on the R&D line and each of the remaining production lines, noting that supervisors are eager to have them added to “their” lines.
"The line operators have seen what’s happening, and they’re asking for their own boosters. We can’t add the other Nanobubble Generators to the other lines fast enough."
Toothpaste Manufacturer
New Wash-Down Procedure Saves $10,000 Annually
As anyone who has ever cleaned a bathroom knows, dried-on toothpaste takes significant effort to scrub off any surface. For one Michigan-based toothpaste manufacturer, it took two people, a half-gallon of caustic cleaner, a scissor lift and six hours to clean the crusty mess of silica that clung to the exterior of its stainless steel mixing tanks, despite brief, daily washdowns. This process had to be repeated every 90 days, costing the company more than $10,000 annually in labor and production downtime.
The company’s process technician led a four-month study to improve this cleaning procedure, installing a 1x2 Nanobubble Generator from Rapid Water Technologies on the wash-down system used to clean the toothpaste tanks.
"After using water from the generator, we immediately noticed that we didn’t need to scrub as hard and the stainless steel surface became easier to clean,” said the technician. At first the facilities team continued using the cleaning agent mixed with the nanobubble water. “We found that our chemical use decreased,” he continued. “Eventually, and to our surprise, we were able to stop using chemicals all together and still see the same results. We’ve found that it cleans even better than the naked eye can see."
Today, the six-hour scrubbing ritual has been eliminated from the manufacturing facility. Instead, a team member simply sprays the tanks’ exteriors using only nanobubble water from washdown system that was modified by Rapid Water Technologies. The process fits within the 15-minute daily washdown, does not interrupt production, and is conducted at floor level, eliminating the need for a scissor lift and accompanying safety gear. The result is a safer facility, less downtime and increased production.
The company’s Quality Assurance team has noticed other impressive benefits, which they attribute to the negative charge in nanobubble water. They say that because the toothpaste residue is positively charged, less residue remains on even the interior of the tanks after each batch. With less residue, each subsequent batch is easier to clean, creating a compounding effect and reducing downtime between every toothpaste batch.
“We’ve looked into other nano-type processes,” explained the company’s process technician. “But they all use chemicals. With Rapid Water Technologies, we don’t have to introduce new chemicals and that’s why our QA lab got 100% behind this process.”
Next, the company’s QA team is exploring other applications and plans to add Rapid Water Technologies Nanobubble Generators to additional water piping locations. The goal is to prevent buildup on the inside of piping. By eliminating buildup, they will see better heat transfer and longer equipment life, which translates to savings on energy and maintenance costs.
Pool Owner
"Not only did the water clear significantly faster than usual, we’ve used far less chemicals to maintain our pool this season when compared to previous years. There’s even more of a sparkle to the water -- a crystal clear quality that’s difficult to quantify but definitely noticeable."
Nanobubbles Create "Sparkling-Clear" Pool and Spa Water
It’s an all-too-common and unwelcome sight for many pool and spa owners: green and murky water has overtaken your backyard paradise. This transformation can happen surprisingly quickly -- even overnight -- wherever algae begins to grow. Typical treatment methods to restore clear blue waters include a heavy dose of chemicals, such as chlorine or algaecide, plus a waiting period of days to weeks while the chemicals break down the algae.
Nanobubbles also have the capacity to mitigate algae growth and, as one Michigan-based pool owner learned, can be combined with traditional pool maintenance techniques for faster cleaning, easier maintenance and reduced chemical use.
The owner of the pool pictured here added a Rapid Water Technologies’ H2O1X1 Nanobubble Generator to his pump just prior to opening it for the season. It had been drained for cleaning and repairs, and the well water used to fill it contained large quantities of iron and tannins. This, combined with algae-growth, gave the pool a green, swamp-like appearance.
In a typical year, after “shocking” the pool with chemicals, he would expect the water to take approximately two weeks to turn a clear blue. But with the generator pumping millions of algae-oxidizing nanobubbles into the water, the spa cleared within hours and the pool by the very next day.
Impact of Nanobubbles on Pools
- 25-50% Reduction in Chlorine and Algaecide Use
- Less Frequent Cleaning of Waterline
- Improved Consistency in Pool Water Chemistry
- More Efficient Use of Chemicals
- Visibly Clearer, Cleaner Water
Commercial Building
Boiler Sees 58% Increase in Heat Transfer Efficiency After Nanobubble Generator Installation
After installing a nanobubble generator on the boiler system, one company saw a 58% increase in heat transfer efficiency. In addition to better heat transfer, the system has been overall cleaner and has resulted in reduced energy costs.
