Chemical Dose Controller History
By far, the biggest hurdle in the development of AguaClara technology has been devising a method for accurately and precisely administering process chemicals while adhering to the fundamental AguaClara design constraint of creating solutions which do not rely on electricity. Modern water treatment plants have computerized control and precise metering pumps at their disposal and while an AguaClara engineer has neither of these, this does not diminish the need for accurate metering.
To that end, AguaClara engineers have been developing a Chemical Dose Controller (CDC) which utilizes principles such as gravity, differences in head pressure, major losses in pipes, etc. to predictably meter process chemicals. The first CDC developed by AguaClara engineers was the Linear Dose Controller, named so because of the linear relationship that exists between flow and the head-loss that occurs as fluid flows through a pipe. This was a simple design that utilized the predictable major head-loss which occurs in a small diameter pipe to meter the flow, and therefore the chemicals, administered to the plant. This relation only holds true under laminar flow conditions and therefore fails as plants increase in size because the required increase in chemical delivery rate causes the fluid to enter the turbulent range.
To overcome this, AguaClara engineers are developing a CDC that utilizes the head-loss through an orifice (rather than through a pipe) to meter the flow of process chemicals. This is the Non-Linear Dose Controller, so-called because flow is now a function of the square-root of the height differential, making the relationship non-linear.