Wastewater and sludge treatment demand designs based on the real behaviour of each fluid.
SACOME is a recognised reference in the field of wastewater and sludge treatment. In this area, the company works with numerous wastewater treatment plants and with many other businesses worldwide that require tubular heat exchangers for processing these types of fluids.
ne of the key aspects in this kind of application is obtaining reliable data on the actual behaviour of the fluid, since its properties can vary significantly from one project to another. In some cases, the fluid behaves as a Newtonian fluid, while in others it is non-Newtonian.
To address this properly, SACOME collaborates with several universities, including the Technical University of Cartagena, carrying out rheological testing to obtain real process data. This collaboration is especially valuable in services where fluid behaviour has a direct impact on exchanger design. For this reason, having accurate values for density, specific heat, thermal conductivity and viscosity is an essential part of the engineering work.
A recent example is the award of a project for the supply of a heat exchanger for heating sludge from poultry waste. In services with a significant solids content, the usual approach is to consider single-tube I-TF20-I units in order to avoid blockage problems. In this case, however, multitubular I-TFM-D exchangers arranged in series were selected, since an appropriate filtration system will be installed upstream of the exchanger. 
In addition, due to the characteristics of the service fluid, the selected design includes a removable tube bundle, allowing inspection and cleaning on the shell side.
This project reflects well how SACOME works in this field: combining experience, real product data and design adaptation to the specific conditions of each service.
Design begins with understanding the fluid.