It’s well known that the presence of scale — even a small amount — in industrial cooling and heating system can increase operational costs. Preventive maintenance on cooling towers, boilers and other water-contacted systems can mitigate the risk of scale. Chemical descaling provides one clean-in-place solution, says chiller and cooling tower cleaning equipment maker Goodway Technologies.

Consulting services and laboratory testing can help determine how to approach the scale in an industrial operation, and many companies offer such services. Scale can adhere to the surface area and act as an insulation barrier on the heat transfer surface. This results in the loss of actual heat transfer and proper functionality, and the equipment uses more energy to complete a routine task. When ignored, under-deposit corrosion can develop and eat into the base of the metal, which causes tube or equipment failure.

Liquid descaling solutions such as Goodway Technologies’ ScaleBreak can be used to remove scale deposits in situ, says the manufacturer.