Approximate dkh of kalk SLURRY

[Formulator]

I know there isn’t a definitive answer for a suspension, but I’m looking for a ballpark range for alk of a super saturated kalk slurry.

Background - I’m helping another member with an insurance claim on his coral farm. As a liquid handling/reactor SME in biotech, the insurance company agreed to accept a root cause analysis from me. If the equipment can be even partially blamed for the incident, he can recover some of his losses from insurance. I believe a kalk reactor design flaw may have contributed to the dumping of a large amount of kalk slurry into the system which led to a massive alk and pH swing before any controller could shut down the reactor. A key piece of evidence would be to reconcile the volume of liquid that would theoretically be dumped in the suspected failure mode with the observed alk/pH spike and theoretical spike from that volume of kalk slurry.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

The only way to figure slurry potency is to know how much is suspended in how much liquid. Then use this calculator with the entry for solid calcium hydroxide.

Reef Chemistry Calculator

reef.diesyst.com

 

[Formulator]

The only way to figure slurry potency is to know how much is suspended in how much liquid. Then use this calculator with the entry for solid calcium hydroxide.

Reef Chemistry Calculator

reef.diesyst.com

Thanks, Randy. I do understand that concept, but was wondering if folks might have a suggested ballpark range. I’m sure there are limitations at least on the upper end for how much solid will reasonably stay in suspension and flow through the commonly used 1/4 inch tubing. At some particulate density it would become physically impractical and too variable to use the slurry in an automated reactor.

Really I am trying to test a hypothesis that just a gallon of kalk slurry could spike alk and pH enough to crash a 3000 gallon system. I suppose I could work the problem in reverse and see how much solid CaOH it would take to do that, then figure out if that would be a reasonable amount to have in a kalk slurry within the reactor.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Thanks, Randy. I do understand that concept, but was wondering if folks might have a suggested ballpark range. I’m sure there are limitations at least on the upper end for how much solid will reasonably stay in suspension and flow through the commonly used 1/4 inch tubing. At some particulate density it would become physically impractical and too variable to use the slurry in an automated reactor.

Really I am trying to test a hypothesis that just a gallon of kalk slurry could spike alk and pH enough to crash a 3000 gallon system. I suppose I could work the problem in reverse and see how much solid CaOH it would take to do that, then figure out if that would be a reasonable amount to have in a kalk slurry within the reactor.

Unless folks who have experimented and determined the potency range that’s possible, I don’t think one can say much except it could be VERY high. After all, all of the stirring solids in a kalk reactor are a slurry.