# Acid neutralizer nightmare



## WrenchMonkey (Feb 24, 2010)

Does anybody have some insight on maintaining acid neutralizing systems? My company does work for a huge forwarding company that has a large fleet of battery operated forklifts and pallet trucks, the charging area and service area drain all waste water into a neurtralizing tank before it enters the sewers. Well three years of hosing the floors down into the trough drains led to a gummed up neutralizing tank and a backup throughout the service bays. When we popped the top on the tank (after drilling and grinding out the acid corroded hatch bolts) the acid residue and sediment had pretty much turned the limestone media into a brick. Fast forward two days, a jackhammer, a pumper truck to suck out the acid laden rock, $2000 worth of new limestone, and a $2000 disposal fee (the waste is considered toxic) jetting, camera inspections, augering labor, ETC,ETC,ETC. So long story short how do I prevent this from happening again? What kind of maintenance should be done on this system to keep it running efficiently? Would a ph monitor be a good way to judge the effectiveness of the media and would monitoring this be a way to avoid this situation? Thanks for putting up with this long long post and please be gentle on this humble apprentice:blink:


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## njoy plumbing (May 19, 2009)

Good explanation. I would think that judging by the size of the neutrelizing tank you would almost need a monthly inspection of ph level. I know on mod con boilers and hi eff furnaces, we change out limestone yearly, so I would think that your senario would require more than that. How big is that tank to have 2000.00 worth of lime stone? It is quite cheap here.


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## Protech (Sep 22, 2008)

What about sodium hydroxide or sodium bicarbonate as a neutralizing agent?

What type of acid is going down the drain?


Sounds to me like a PH monitor and an automatic caustic soda injector would be the ticket but without knowing what type of acid we are dealing with I don't really know.

Are we talking sulfuric acid? You did mention batteries which I assume are lead-acid batteries.


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## WrenchMonkey (Feb 24, 2010)

The tanks 8ft deep and 6ft diameter, we needed 40 boxes of limestone @ $50 our cost per box and each box was 50lbs. We we're in a bit of a bind and didn't have time to shop around so I think we paid a premium on stone. To answer the question about the type of acid I beleive they do use lead acid batteries in the lifts so it's probably sulfuric acid. This warehouse has service bays for the batteries and the lifts. They have I'm guessing about 40 forklifts and 60 motorized pallet trucks as well as a huge charging station where at least 60 batteries are kept at the ready. So there is at least 160 batteries in this place and I'm not talking AA's.


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## Protech (Sep 22, 2008)

I would go with sodium bicarbonate then. 

Calcium carbonate (limestone) is not the best to use for that situation.


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