Type of Facility and Location:
- A pharmaceutical manufacturing facility in New Jersey.
Primary Issues:
- The mechanical system servicing the manufacturing space could no longer maintain the proper temperature and humidity levels necessary for ongoing operations.
- Provided a system performance restoration in order to avoid a $500,000 replacement capital expense, and costs associated with a lengthy operational downtime of system replacement.
Type of System:
- The mechanical system included a single 100 ton HEPA filtered AHU with an 8-row coil approximately 4 ft. by 8 ft.
- The dedicated air-cooled chiller plant sat directly adjacent to the AHU and was powered by a 480-volt 3-phase bus.
Pre-cleaning Condition of System:
- The ambient type of particulate was a fine powder.
- The chilled water coil appeared to be visibly clear.
- There were multiple banks of Merv 8 and Merv 12 filtration in front of the coil and a bank of HEPA downstream from the coil.
- However, airflow testing across the coil confirmed several blockages that were greatly affecting unit performance.
- The chiller plant itself showed heavy contamination in the condenser coils and was constantly running all four compressors with high head pressure to achieve a 41 degree chilled water output temperature.
Services Performed:
- Both the chilled water coil inside the AHU and the bank of condenser coils for the chiller plant were cleaned with the patented Biomik Process which incorporates:
- Multiple alternating courses of high pressure “wet steam” and Biomik Coil Cleaner.
- A post-cleaning Biomik Protective Coil Spray is applied.
Contractor: Hines Property Management
Awarded a Hines Best Practice for this project
Hines Property Management utilized all traditional coil cleaning methodologies in an effort to increase delivered cooling BTUs for the building. The 50-year-old coils were performing far below their designed capacity resulting in severe comfort issues during the summer months. There were also odor issues that re-occurred at certain times of the year.
Biomik was contracted to utilize the Biomik Process as a last attempt to restore coil performance and avoid the $1 Million Capital Expenditure Project of re-placing the coils in all 9 AHU. Cost and operational downtime were further complicated by the location of the AHU in the mechanical Penthouse of the two towers
Biomik increased CFM output of all 9 AHU by an average of 23% with a couple of units as high as 45%. There was a corresponding increase in the Delta T across the coil of 15% and further improvement of humidity reduction of 19%. Hines engineers later confirmed that the coils had been returned to the designed performance of the original blueprints 50 years ago.
The net results for the City, County, and Hines was that the building was now easily handling even the hottest days in the summer without tenant complaint. The biological odor was eliminated, and energy cost was reduced by moving up the chilled water set point. Most importantly the $1 million Capex has been avoided to this day, 9 years later.
Biömik was contracted to clean a 50-ton AHU at the army barracks. A third-party test and balance company was engaged to provide full air and chilled water analysis of the project.
Airflow, temperature, and humidity of the air along with chilled water temperature and GPM were measured and recorded before and after the cleaning.
The test unit had been previously cleaned with traditional methods 3 months prior to our test. There was also a UV light bathing the intake side of the coil and plenum.
Project Results:
- Cooling efficiency increased from 6002 BTUH per GPM to 9088 BTUH per GPM
- This represents an improvement in the operational performance of the cooling unit by 50% (fifty percent)
These results are even more impressive given this coil had been cleaned just 3 months earlier with conventional processes and using standard cleaning agents
