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What Is AMBERPACK™ Ion Exchange and How Does It Work?

Home 9 Ion Exchange 9 What Is AMBERPACK™ Ion Exchange and How Does It Work?

For industrial facilities looking to boost the efficiency of its source water treatment, AMBERPACK™ ion exchange might be the compact solution you’re looking for. With efficient water treatment capabilities and a small footprint, these systems are some of the best ion exchange technologies on the market. But while you’re exploring the different ion exchange systems available, you might be wondering what is AMBERPACK™ and how does it work? In this article, we’ll explain how this technology, similar to DOWEX UPCORE™, aids in providing a steady stream of demineralized water with lower chemical use than other systems.

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What is AMBERPACK™ Ion Exchange?

AMBERPACK™ is an ion exchange technology that utilizes upflow currents for service cycles and downflow currents for regeneration. It’s also available with a special fractal technology (known as ADVANCED AMBERPACK™, which produces a higher water yield and creates less waste). Because this technology has two different flow patterns, it’s known as a “counter-current” technology. This technology was developed over time to improve conventional ion exchange technologies that flowed in one direction for both its service and regeneration cycles, both going downwards by gravity in what is known as “co-current” technology.

For industrial facilities looking to create high-purity water from their raw water source with little waste, whether it draws from a lake, river, well, or local municipality, these systems often exhibit a large improvement in a variety of ways.

They can be ideal solutions for industrial facilities looking to decrease its chemical use and increase demineralized water quality while decreasing your system footprint.

How Does AMBERPACK™ Ion Exchange Work?

Like other ion exchange technologies, AMBERPACK™ removes scale-forming calcium or magnesium ions from raw water and other solutions. When the solution passes through an ion resin composed of concentrated sodium ions, the calcium and magnesium ions are effectively captured from solution and held by the resin, while the sodium ions are released from the resin into the effluent stream. Ion exchange systems separate ionic contaminants from solution through a physical-chemical process where undesirable ions are replaced by other ions of the same electrical charge.

Over time, the resin becomes saturated with the contaminant ions, and it must be regenerated or recharged. This is accomplished by flushing the resin with a regenerant solution. Typically consisting of a concentrated salt, acid, or caustic solution, the regenerant reverses the ion exchange reaction by replenishing the cations or anions on the resin surface, and releasing the contaminant ions into the wastewater.

AMBERPACK™’s countercurrent technology features flat plates with nozzles drilled through them on the top and bottom, where the space between is filled with resin. As mentioned prior, it operates in a similar way to DOWEX UPCORE™, but instead of a downflow service cycle and upflow regeneration, AMBERPACK™ utilizes an upflow service cycle and downflow regeneration.

The technology also utilizes a higher service flow with a low rate downflow regeneration. This application isn’t the best for high-TDS. If you have many solids in your water, it can be difficult to get them out of the vessel, which also means you need to remove the resin to clean it. For this reason, AMBERPACK™ is typically used after sufficient pretreatment measures like clarification and filtration, but for applications where there are low-TDS and low-solid water sources, AMBERPACK™ can be a great way to increase water quality while decreasing chemical use and taking up less space.

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