How to cut chemical OPEX 70% on a manufacturing chiller.
The Evolve Group install is the cleanest test case we have for the question every plant engineer eventually asks: does this membrane technology actually pay back, and how fast? Two chillers, same architecture, same result. Here's what changed in week one — and the maths for whether your circuit looks the same.
The starting position
Evolve runs a plastic-manufacturing facility with three water-cooling systems supporting injection moulding lines. Bacterial fouling and suspended-solid accumulation in the chiller circuits had become a chronic operating cost. Maintenance teams faced repeated unscheduled work — plant downtime, production losses, extensive cleaning of expensive moulds. As a secondary effect, the cooling lines were riddled with corrosion and thick sludge.
The pattern is familiar. Closed-loop cooling water systems concentrate everything they don't reject — bacteria, biofilm precursors, suspended solids, scale precursors. Chemistry programs (biocides, scale inhibitors, dispersants) handle the symptoms but never the root cause. Over time the chemical bill ratchets up while head pressure ratchets down. Production yields suffer. Maintenance windows extend. Operators stop trusting the readings.
The intervention
Blue Quest's trial skid was implemented alongside Chiller 1 as the initial install. Non-invasive integration — the dynamic-membrane stage sits in a side-stream loop, continuously filtering the recirculating cooling water at 1.8 bar. Self-renewing gel layer on the membrane substrate, TMP-triggered backwash every 15-60 seconds when needed, no chemical CIP cycles required.
of head pressure restored at Evolve Chiller 1 within two weeks. Lowered pumping power immediately. Independently validated by ALS Laboratories.
Within two weeks Chiller 1's reservoir and associated cooling lines were free of bacteria and visible sludge. Unscheduled maintenance — filter changes, lance cleaning, biocide top-ups — dropped sharply. With the immediate result on Chiller 1, Blue Quest extended the install to Chiller 2. Same gel chemistry, same backwash logic, same outcome on the same timeline. Two chillers, same result.
What it actually saved
The OPEX numbers, validated independently by ALS Laboratories:
- ~$50k+ per month in OPEX saved across the two chillers, including chemical purchase, unscheduled maintenance, and energy through restored head pressure
- 10 m of head pressure restored — direct reduction in pumping energy
- Material reduction in production losses from chiller-driven downtime
- Smaller chemical inventory on site — handling, storage, regulatory complexity all reduced
- Continuous automated treatment instead of episodic chemistry-and-cleaning cycles
Payback on the system was inside the first month — among the fastest paybacks we've documented and consistent with the <12-month figure independently observed across our customer base.
Will this work on your chiller circuit?
The economics carry to any closed-loop cooling water system where bacterial fouling, head-pressure collapse or chemical OPEX is becoming a significant operating line. Particular fits we see frequently:
Manufacturing
Plastic moulding (Evolve's profile), metalworking, food and beverage processing, pharmaceutical, semiconductor. Closed-loop cooling on production equipment where downtime carries direct revenue cost.
Data centres
Tower-cooled or hybrid-cooled DCs running biocide programs against legionella and biofilm. Continuous treatment with measurable side-stream filtration is increasingly preferred over episodic dosing.
HVAC at scale
Six-star buildings, hospitals, large commercial complexes. Where the chiller plant supports critical building services, the maintenance-window calculus changes — uninterrupted treatment becomes worth more than the chemistry it replaces.
Power generation
Auxiliary cooling water systems on generation assets. Often run with a chemistry program and a manual chemistry-cleaning cycle that's both expensive and high-risk to the operator.
The four numbers to gather before you call us
If you're considering a Purus stage on a chiller circuit, these are the inputs we need to come back with sized hardware and indicative outcomes inside five business days:
Daily make-up volume (m³/day)
Drives system sizing — the membrane area we configure scales with continuous duty.
Current monthly chemistry spend (A$)
Biocide, scale inhibitor, dispersant — total monthly chemistry cost across all chiller-related dosing.
Last 12 months of unscheduled maintenance hours
Chiller cleaning, filter changes, downtime — the ballpark on how often the program is failing under normal operation.
Power cost (A$/kWh) and pumping head spec
Lets us model the head-pressure restoration component of the savings.
Send those numbers and a 1-litre sample of the chiller-circuit water and we'll come back with a sized Purus 100.5 (or 100.20 for larger duties), indicative CAPEX/OPEX, and a Water Challenge proposal — usually inside five business days. Or run the numbers yourself in our 90-second ROI calculator for a starting estimate.