REACTION SYSTEMS, INC. — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: N202-132

Description

Current Navy ships make use of shell-and-tube heat exchangers, which can utilize seawater as a heat sink.  This is advantageous since ships can easily pull in water, filter it, use it in a heat exchanger, then dump the water overboard.  Utilizing seawater as a heat sink reduces logistical burden and allows for ships to not have to store additional coolant onboard. Unfortunately, seawater is teeming with marine life.  Up to now, filtration, high velocity flushing, and occasional chlorination of the heat exchanger has been used to clean and maintain the heat exchanger in situ with deep cleaning when the ship is in port.  However, filtration does not filter out bacteria, which colonize on walls of the heat exchanger to form a biofilm.  When the biofilm matures, it attracts larger organisms including algae. In this Phase I project, Reaction Systems, Inc (RSI) proposes to clean heat exchangers in an environmentally responsible way that does not harm marine life outside of the heat exchanger. We will utilize a combination of disinfection and sanitization. With this combination method, RSI is confident biofilm growth can be inhibited and heat exchangers continue to operate at peak capacity.