Beating the Water Shortage

Elga Process Water has upgraded a laboratory’s existing water system, resulting in a 25% reduction in mains water use.Poole based ACS Environmental Testing is a UKAS accredited laboratory specialising in water, wastewater, leachate and soil testing. Analysing for trace levels of a wide range of contaminants means sophisticated instruments like HPLC, mass spectrometry and ion chromatography, all of which rely on ultrapure water. Each of the ACS laboratories – sample preparation, standards preparation and chemistry – was equipped with a PURELAB® Option Q7 capable of supplying 7 litres per hour of 18.2MW.cm Type 1 laboratory grade water. But ACS’s rapid growth since 2006 meant that they were running critically short of ultrapure water.

“We were happy with the PURELAB® units, so we talked to our Elga Service Engineer to find out what we could do to increase capacity,” said ACS’s Stuart White. Rather than replacing the PURELAB® Option 7s, ELGA Process Water’s solution was more sustainable. They upgraded the units to deliver 15 litres per hour of water, sufficient for ACS’s future needs.

“The ELGA Service Engineer was really helpful, and took a genuine interest in our problem,” said Stuart. “He also suggested a number of ways in which we could reduce our mains water consumption by reusing waste water, and helped us to design and install the necessary piping modifications. It has been so successful that we were awarded a commendation from Wessex Water and they are using us as a best practice reference site.” ELGA Process Water’s Service Team has always been more than just a maintenance crew, and this is just one example of how the field engineers work with customers. As Stuart said: “When these guys say customer care, they really mean it.”