The Best Gasket Materials for Water Treatment Facilities
28 June 2022Clean and potable water is essential to anyone’s life. Without ensuring its cleanliness, it will only make people sick and affected by a wide array of diseases and illnesses.
To ensure that people can attain clean and potable water, it must be treated through water treatment facilities. Water treatment facilities are equipped with parts and devices that can make water safe to drink and pleasant to taste. They can also make sure that the supply of water will meet the standards of a community. They even ensure that the water supply would be able to reach all properties.
Now, for water treatment facilities to work appropriately, they must be equipped with the right gasket materials. Installing the right ones for water treatment facilities can ensure that they can operate safely, protect the environment, prolong their service life, and minimise maintenance and inventory costs.
The Problem with Styrene Butadiene Rubber
Styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR) is one of the most used materials for gaskets. What is great about this material is it offers excellent crack endurance and abrasion resistance. It can also provide a good compression set and water resistance. These qualities make it useful for gaskets intended for potable water applications.
However, SBR gaskets are not recommended for water treatment facilities since they can degrade naturally over time. Given the operating conditions of these facilities, they will only meet the end of their service life very quickly. SBR gaskets are also not ideal for water treatment facilities due to their low compressive strength. Even water treatment chemicals like chloramine, sodium hypochlorite, and others may easily compromise the qualities of these gaskets, making them not the best option for these facilities.
Compressed Non-Asbestos for General Use
Water treatment facilities that process non-potable water, steam, and other waste products may take advantage of gaskets out of compressed non-asbestos (CNA). CNA gaskets are recommended for these facilities since they have excellent sealing characteristics, superior ease of cutting, and relatively low initial and operational costs.
CNA gaskets are comprised of fibre, binder, and filler. They also utilise a small percentage of solvent-based vulcanising chemicals that can cure the rubber-based binders during their manufacturing processes. The fibre element of CNA gaskets helps in fortifying their tensile and compression properties, while the binder element ensures that the gaskets will become more flexible. Fillers, ultimately, are integrated into the CNA gaskets so they can effectively control creep and minimise cold flow.
Taking Advantage of Polytetrafluoroethylene
As for critical service and chemical use, filled polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) gaskets are the ones needed. What makes these gaskets useful for these applications is they have excellent chemical resistance, high sealability, and long service life.
Despite being exposed to various environmental conditions, filled PTFE gaskets will not break down easily compared to others. They are also inert to almost all types of chemicals, which makes them the best option for chemical applications. Another great thing about filled PTFE gaskets is they can withstand loads of up to 15,000 psi, which is ten times more than the compressive strength of SBR gaskets.
To find out more about these gaskets, you can contact us at Gasketech.
Optimized by: Netwizard SEO
