Atlas High Purity Solutions summarizes the design and installation of a validated ultrapure water system
Challenge: A Greater Boston biotechnology firm required a validated ultrapure water system to feed laboratory equipment and faucets on multiple floors of a new building. The facility had an existing high purity water system, but it was over-sized for their current water usage requirements. Futhermore, the existing system had not originally been designed for validation, and was lacking the proper instrumentation, documentation, and traceability of validated water systems. The company asked Atlas High Purity Solutions to explore whether the existing legacy system could be down-sized to meet actual water demand throughout the facility, and simultaneously upgraded to meet validation requirements.
Solution: Atlas consulted with the customer to evaluate the existing equipment and its suitability for the company’s applications.
In designing high purity water systems, it is critical to ensure that reverse osmosis (RO) run time is optimized for the facility's specific applications. If an RO is over-sized and fills a storage tank too quickly, the RO will exhibit shorter run times and longer idle times, which is bad for the equipment and increases the incidence of biological fouling in the RO membranes. With the customer now requiring lower quantities of water than the existing system had regularly produced in the past, Atlas determined that the existing system could not be downsized without compromising water quality.
Ultimately, due to the size of the existing system and the fact that it had not originally been designed with validation in mind, it was determined that a new system would be a simpler and more economical option than modifying the existing system.
Atlas worked with the customer to remove the legacy equipment and make room for the new, appropriately sized system. Atlas designed an ultrapure water system feeding three (3) independent recirculating loops to various labs on multiple floors of the building. Atlas installed the new water system, as well as the loops feeding the equipment and recirculating faucets. The system included containment and leak detection, and its controls features included online total organic carbon (TOC) and resistivity monitoring from Thornton/Mettler Toledo. Atlas assisted in the creation and execution of IQ, OQ, and PQ protocol, and achieved $65,000 of savings for the customer by using alternative piping materials and recirculating faucets. The result is a turnkey ultrapure water system that satisfies the customer's usage and validation requirements.
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Atlas High Purity Solutions has been designing, installing, and servicing high purity water systems for more than thirty years, and is the leading provider of reverse osmosis and DI water solutions in the northeast United States.
