| abstract |
The invention relates to the reduction and prevention of biofouling in facilities utilizing water, e.g. sea water, carrying biological organisms, without causing corrosion, chemical reaction or other detrimental action from the additive or environmental discharge problems. Such operations include, for example, desalinization plants, power plants, oilfield water injection facilities and shipboard or ocean platform fire water systems. For example, in the desalinization plant of Fig. 1, the biofouling reduction method and apparatus for this invention has a source of oxidizing agent (e.g., chlorine ions or ozone), a source of copper ions and a dosing chamber (25) for delivery of relatively low dosage levels of oxidizing agents and at appropriate times copper ions to form a treatment additive. Flow connectors (29) connect the dosing chamber (25) to various points along the piping in the desalinization plant. A controller (31) controls the operation of the dosing chamber and valves (33) along the flow connectors (29) to operate in a sequential target dosing mode to deliver treatment additive of predetermined composition to selected points along the piping at predetermined times and in predetermined concentrations. |