Cooling Tower Questions

[Flash]

I'm thinking about ditching my smallish radiator for a bong/cooling tower, but I have a few concerns. First, what kind of biocide can you use in the water that wouldn't stink to high heaven? Water wetter and antifreeze are definitely out. I suppose chlorine is a possibility, but I don't fancy the idea of having my computer area smelling like a public pool. Suggestions?

Second, assuming that I go with an 18-24" high by 4" diameter tower with a smallish fan, what's a ballpark idea of how often you need to replace the coolant due to evaporation? I mean, are we talking daily, weekly, monthly?

Any other info. or experiences with this cooling method would also be appreciated.

[Mark]

I work as an Operations supervisor in a large refinery here in Houston, Texas, and the two units which I supervise each have a cooling tower. Our cooling towers used to use Chlorine gas as you had mentioned, but we now use hypochlorite bleach. Hypochlorite bleach is simply a much stronger version of household bleach. In small quantities, I don't think you would notice an offensive bleach smell, as our cooling towers have no real smell. Bottom line, I think a weak bleach based solution may work for a bong. As for maintaining a PH of 7.30, we use acid which is fed in through what we call a drip-line. This would not be practical for home use of course. There are three companies that provide specialty chemicals to the plants that I know of, however, and I am quite sure that they would help you out. These companies are Betz-Dearborn, Ashland and Nalco, though I may have spelled Dearborn wrong. They have all kinds of biocides and anti-corrosion chemicals. Anyway, I figured that some here may be interested to hear about how the really big process cooling towers are maintained.

[Flash]

That is interesting.

But I think I got a better idea from another forum. They make biocides specifically for indoor vaporizers which are odorless and effective.

[Colin]

Five drops of Chlorox per gallon. Use a swimming pool tester to maintain your water balance.