Triple Greensand Plus Filter for Iron and Manganese Removal

A triple Greensand Plus filter for iron and manganese removal was assembled and shipped today. This skid-mounted system will be installed to treat the water for a small community water system in the Poconos operated by a large private water utility company.


The system operates in a parallel arrangement with three skid mounted, Greensand Plus filters with optional interconnecting piping and isolation valves. As specified, Bray butterfly valves with electric actuators are used. To match standard practice at the utility, a Modicon Premium PLC with Wonderware Windows CE operator interface panel will be used. Each tank is epoxy lined carbon steel with an epoxy exterior, 150 psi ASME code. Face piping consists of Schedule 40 black pipe and fittings. Regeneration initiated by either high differential pressure or timeclock.


As stated in a previous post, Greensand Plus iron and manganese removal media from Inversand replaces the discontinued Greensand filter media.

Online Catalog for Water Treatment Equipment

Now, when you visit www.reskem.com, you can quickly compare features of over 380 standard pieces of Res-Kem's water treatment equipment, evaluate our system options, download product brochures and request a quote using our online catalog. Res-Kem added this online catalog to our website to maintain our 1# rating for responsiveness.

Currently, the catalog is only accessible through http://catalog.reskem.com. Over the next few weeks we will be making changes to most every page to fully integrate the catalog into our site. You will be able to view the entire catalog structure through the sitemap.

Also, list pricing and online purchasing will be available for water system replacement parts by the end of June 2010.

Stainless Steel Condensate Polisher with Bray Valves

Res-Kem just completed another condensate polisher manufactured in stainless steel. This system uses our standard design with optional butterfly valves.


The vessel is manufactured from 304L stainless steel with 100 psi ASME code construction. Pipe assemblies are welded Schedule 10 304L stainless steel piping. This single unit condensate polisher has an added feature of automatic bypass. The customer required our optional Bray butterfly valve design.

The actuators are air open/spring return so the valves can work with the GE Aquamatic 962 series stager controller.

Regeneration is initiated by either:

• Gallon throughput


• High differential pressure


• Timeclock

Additional Information:
Condensate Polisher Product Bulletin
The white paper, "Condensate Polisher Savings of 23% Realized Through Value Engineering", shows how a value engineering team yielded the best condensate polishing system for the money.

Blogger Transition from FTP-Step #7

While everything looked fine at first, it turns out there was one more big problem we had in our transition from our own hosted blog using FTP with Blogger to a Blogger hosted blog. The numerous pictures we had in our old posts were not showing up in our Blogger hosted version. It turned out a step 7 required to make the final transition.

After searching Blogger Help and hunting around we found this paragraph at the bottom of the page:

"This situation may arise if you originally published your blog via FTP and then switched to using custom domain publishing. Images originally posted to your server do not get transferred over to Blogger when you do this, so you may want to move them all to a server such as images.yourdomain.com and use that as your missing files host."

Blogger did not make this easy because I needed to make a new server, so I had to contact LinuxForce to help us one more time.

I think finally I am out of the woods on this transition! Now I can get back to my routine blogs on water treatment systems, news, innovation and technology.

Shut-Down of FTP Support on Blogger - Step 6

Well, I had to invoke step #6 "Have a good resource to call if this does not work!!". While the transition was smoother than I anticipated, I still needed a couple of redirect statements to solve some broken links and "Page Not Found" errors. The group helping me to get my Blogger account transitioned is LinuxForce. They verified what to do, gave me the simple steps required and made server and minor site adjustments. I am very satisfied!

Shut-Down of FTP Support on Blogger-Steps 3-5

Well, I think we might be okay. We need to do Step #5 with our web hosting support person later today. I could do it, but I'll let them. The next step will be to check links and history. Hopefully I will not need to employ Step #6 "Have a good resource to call if this does not work!!"

Shut-Down of FTP Support on Blogger

You may have seen a hiatus with my normally routine blog posts. I was a little preoccupied this past month. I was in a crisis about a imminent shutdown of FTP support on Blogger, the application we have been using to post our blogs.

Situation:

We recently announced that our blog on water treatment is approaching its 4th year. Almost simultaneously, we were sent an email from the Blogger Product Manager announcing "a planned shut-down of FTP support on Blogger Buzz (the official Blogger blog), and wanted to make sure you saw the announcement". Not having the time, nor frankly the interest in following a Blogger blog on blogging support, we did not see it until the email on February 2, 2010. The clock was ticking so I needed to find out what to do and how implement a solution by March 26, 2010.

Main Challenges:

I am pretty savvy technically, but this one required some research. The main challenges were:

• Using FTP to post our blog has been relatively painless.


• Retaining the numerous links to and from Blogger to www.reskem.com and other sites.


• Losing our over 100 posts on our blog and/or having two locations were the blog resides


• Losing our daily automatic backup of our blog during our normal, automatic website backup


• Having to structurally change our website, http://www.reskem.com/


• Needing to change settings at our web hosting company that they may or may not be able/willing to do


• Losing our search rankings because of this substantive change in hosting from our server to a Blogger (Google) server

Some of the Research:

I read many articles on the web and in several recent books on possible blog posting software applications and strongly considered changing. A posting on Blogger Buzz seemed to indicate a smooth transition, but there were some server settings, redirects, and files required that I was unwilling/unable/scared to undertake on my own. Luckily my web hosting company has an excellent resource to walk me through the process.

Process:

Here was the process to make the transition:

1. Set up http://blog.reskem.com/ in DNS


2. Wait a day (This is the set I am at now)


3. Follow instructions to "Update Your Blogger Settings" using blog.reskem.com as the "Custom Domain"


4. Check to see if it works by navigating to http://blog.reskem.com/


5. Set up an .htaccess file to redirect traffic from http://www.reskem.com/blog/ to http://blog.reskem.com/


6. Have a good resource to call if this does not work!!

Since I am at step #2 going to start step #3, we'll see if this blows up and I lose 4 years of work!

Why did Blogger decide to do this?

Here is some additonal text from the announcment email. It sounds valid, but still a pain for us at Res-Kem:

"Last May, we discussed a number of challenges facing[1] Blogger users who relied on FTP to publish their blogs. FTP remains a significant drain on our ability to improve Blogger: only .5% of active blogs are published via FTP — yet the percentage of our engineering resources devoted to supporting FTP vastly exceeds that. On top of this, critical infrastructure that our FTP support relies on at Google will soon become unavailable, which would require that we completely rewrite the code that handles our FTP processing.

Three years ago we launched Custom Domains[2] to give users the simplicity of Blogger, the scalability of Google hosting, and the flexibility of hosting your blog at your own URL. Last year's post discussed the advantages of custom domains over FTP[3] and addressed a number of reasons users have continued to use FTP publishing. (If you're interested in reading more about Custom Domains, our Help Center has a good overview[4] of how to use them on your blog.) In evaluating the investment needed to continue supporting FTP, we have decided that we could not justify diverting further engineering resources away from building new features for all users."

Automatic DI Bank Switching and Data Acquisition Controller

Res-Kem has developed an integrated DI Bank Switching and Data Acquisition Automation Controller. The system monitors the inlet and outlet resistivity and the flow rate. At one of several alarm points, the system will send a text message to any number of email addresses and mobile devices. As part of a service agreement with Res-Kem/General Water, the system will warn Res-Kem/General Water personnel to prepare for a replacement of the soon to be exhausted bank of DI bottles.

Depending upon the system programming the bank will attempt to rinse to quality in several stages. If it does not succeed, the bank will switch to a standby bank and notify Res-Kem that the bank is exhausted fully and needs to be changed out.

The reason why Res-Kem developed this product is many people were having problems getting replacement parts and proprietary circuit boards for the excellent product called the Aquaswitch II a registered trademark of Myron L. Also, with reduced staffing at most of our customers, people do not have the time to monitor a stack light or resistivity monitor. As a result, the quality can be poorer than required potentially damaging down stream processes and products.

Tiny Particles Fight Giant Water Problem

Many of you may have heard of the chemicals that are in our drinking water including drugs, antibiotics, and other very small and difficult to remove chemicals. These can cause health effects at very low levels. Some disrupt the hormone systems of humans and wildlife, posing threats to fetal development and young children. Sources include birth control pills, prescription drugs, antibiotics, cosmetics and fragrances. People take the drugs and excrete them in urine.

In the online article "Pollutant-Fighting Particles Purify Water" in Lab News Daily by Laboratory Equipment, it briefly describes the continuing R&D project by two Charlton University professors to bring this technology to municipal and industrial waste water treatment plants. It will be interesting to see how they plan on removing the particles from the treated waste water in a cost-effective manner.

Deionizer/Demineralizer System with Packaged Design Introduced

Res-Kem recently introduced packaged DI Water Systems for Commercial and Light Industrial applications. The OHM-TECH Series two-bed deionizers for commercial and light industrial applications are designed for semi-automatic production of water with a conductivity of less than 10 micro-ohms and feature:

• Flow rates from 1 - 40 gpm
• Ion exchange Capacities from 9,000 - 90,000 grains.
• Strong acid cation and type 1 strong base anion resins.
• Microprocessor based control system with conductivity monitor and flow sensor for regeneration initiation.
• Corrosion resistant fiberglass electrical enclosures which reduces maintenance costs.
• Resin vessels are polyethylene-lined fiberglass.
• ASME code vessels.
• Factory assembly and skid mounting for quick installation and minimum startup cost.
• Schedule 80 PVC piping package using a multi-function hydraulically operated composite valve.
• Metering valves for accurate and safe control of regeneration water and chemical introduction.
• Internal distributors are corrosion resistant, designed for optimum efficiency.

These following facilities are examples of ideal applications for Res-Kem's demineralizer and deionizer (DI) equipment:

• Food and Beverage Processing Plants
• Power plants
• Chemical plants
• Pharmaceutical Plants
• High pressure boiler feedwater
• Manufacturing Plants
• Laboratories
• Autoclaves
• Steam Generators
• Electronic Products
• Medical Device Production
• Alloy Metal Fabrication
• Aerospace
• Humidification Systems
• Metal Treating
• Plating
• Printed Circuit Boards