SUEZ Water UK has launched an innovative new laboratory system, designed to reduce operating costs for laboratory water purification systems. Developed as a standard benchtop unit, the new Select edi 60 combines double-pass reverse osmosis (RO) and electrodeionisation (EDI) technologies in a single compact system. This approach eliminates the need for conditioning cartridges and carbon dioxide pretreatment filters, reduces total dissolved solids (TDS) and offers significantly improved energy efficiency.
Electrodeionisation systems are widely used in laboratories for a wide range of duties, producing water to grade I, II and II qualities. Although an effective solution, EDI cells are particularly sensitive to the presence of calcium and magnesium ions in the source water, and can also be damaged by the presence of dissolved carbon dioxide, while high levels of TDS will lead to a rapid decline in deionisation efficiency.
The solution employed in most laboratory EDI units is to install conditioning cartridges to reduce water hardness, pretreatment filters to reduce dissolved carbon dioxide and single-pass RO membranes to protect each EDI cell still further. This arrangement, however, leads to high operating costs, which are often overlooked at the time of purchase. These can increase total costs significantly, especially in laboratories using high volumes of water or operating in hard water areas.
SUEZ Water UK has overcome these issues by, for the first time in a compact laboratory unit, combining double-pass RO and EDI technologies. This system operates efficiently with even the hardest of feed water sources, providing continuous and consistent volumes of water at the correct quality to the EDI cell and significantly reducing the need for consumables and maintenance.