Occupational risk and toxicology evaluations of industrial water conditioning

This study addresses the chemical and toxicological questions due to the wide use of chemical treatment programmes for industrial cooling water. First, natural problems encountered in cooling tower systems were presented and grouped into three categories: (i) scaling; (ii) corrosion and (iii) biofouling. Chemical solutions adopted in industrial plants were outlined for each one in order to minimize damage and catagorized as shut-down, production loss, heat transfer reduction, upsets, etc. Above all, the purpose of the work was to identify the most dangerous chemicals normally used, which mean sources of chemical risk for safety workers and their environment; thus, symptoms of exposure, prevention measures and protection tools are also described.