Industrial EDI Water Systems & Deionisation Services

At One Eight Filtration, we design, install, and maintain high-capacity industrial water deionisation and Electro-Deionisation (EDI) systems across Ireland. Whether your facility requires consistent high-purity water for critical laboratory testing, validated pharmaceutical processes, or large-scale steam turbine generation, our solutions ensure total regulatory compliance and uninterrupted operational uptime.

We combine advanced engineering with 24/7 emergency service support to deliver reliable, bespoke ultra-pure water solutions tailored to your precise technical requirements.

What is Electro-Deionisation (EDI) Water Treatment?

Electro-Deionisation (EDI) is an advanced, continuous, and electrically driven water purification technology. By combining electricity, premium ion-exchange membranes, and specialised resin beds, EDI effectively removes ionised species, dissolved solids, and mineral impurities from your feed water supply.

Unlike traditional ion-exchange systems that require periodic shutdowns for harsh chemical regenerations, EDI systems run continuously and sustainably.

Key Benefits of EDI Systems:

• Continuous Operations: Eliminates downtime by regenerating resins inline using an electrical current, ensuring a constant supply of high-purity water.

• Chemical-Free Technology: Removes the need to store, handle, or neutralise dangerous chemicals like acid and caustic soda on your premises.

• Consistently High Megohm Quality: Reliably produces ultra-pure water meeting the most stringent international standards ($>10 \text{ M}\Omega\cdot\text{cm}$ to $18 \text{ M}\Omega\cdot\text{cm}$ resistivity).

• Reduced Operational Costs: Lowers power consumption and eliminates chemical disposal fees, offering a highly efficient return on investment.

Full-Spectrum Deionisation & Demineralisation Solutions

Every facility has unique water quality constraints. One Eight Filtration provides engineered solutions across the entire spectrum of ultra-pure water applications, utilizing both ion-exchange cylinders (DI) and electro-deionisation (EDI) modules.

Turnkey Support: From Specification to 24/7 Maintenance

An ultra-pure water system is only as reliable as the support network behind it. One Eight Filtration is a comprehensive, full-service provider, which means we support your infrastructure long after the initial installation.

• Bespoke System Design: Engineered to match your exact inlet water analysis and peak flow rate demands.

• Validation & Compliance Assistance: Documentation and testing support to assist with stringent industry audits.

• 24/7 Rapid Response Service: Our team of experienced service engineers is on standby around the clock, guaranteeing emergency breakdown assistance to protect your production lines.

• Preventative Maintenance Contracts: Routine calibration, membrane cleaning, and resin monitoring to extend the lifespan of your EDI assets.

What is Demineralised Water?

Demineralised water (also known as demineralised water or DI water) is ultra-pure water from which virtually all dissolved mineral salts and inorganic ions have been removed.

While historical purification relied heavily on thermal distillation—where water is boiled in a still and condensed—modern industrial facilities utilise far more energy-efficient and scalable technologies. At One Eight Filtration, we design and install advanced ion exchange, electro-deionisation (EDI), and membrane filtration (Reverse Osmosis) systems that produce exceptionally high-purity water at a fraction of the operational cost of traditional distillation.

Demineralisation vs. Distillation: The Efficiency Advantage

For commercial and industrial applications, modern demineralisation processes offer significant advantages over old-school thermal distillation:

• Superior Energy Efficiency: Distillation requires massive amounts of thermal energy to boil water. Membrane filtration and EDI rely on fluid hydraulics and electrical currents, drastically reducing energy consumption.

• Continuous Production: Advanced EDI and automated ion-exchange plants operate continuously without the cooling downtime required by industrial stills.

• Targeted Silica Rejection: Modern multi-stage demineralisation systems are explicitly engineered to target and eliminate volatile contaminants like reactive silica, which cause catastrophic scaling in high-pressure boilers.

Comprehensive Mineral & Ion Removal

Our advanced demineralisation systems produce water that is nearly 100% free of dissolved minerals, heavy metals, and salts. Removing these specific ionic species protects your downstream equipment from scaling, corrosion, and chemical interference:

Cations (Positively Charged Ions Removed)

• Calcium (Ca^ 2+) & Magnesium (Mg^2+): The primary drivers of hard water scaling in boilers and heat exchangers.

• Iron (Fe^3+) & Manganese ($Mn^2+): Heavy metals that cause severe fouling, discolouration, and piping blockages.

• Sodium (Na^+) & Potassium (K^+): Highly soluble alkaline metals that must be eliminated for precise laboratory and pharmaceutical compounding.

Anions (Negatively Charged Ions Removed)

• Alkalinity (CO_3^2-, HCO_3^-: Carbonates and bicarbonates that can break down to form corrosive carbon dioxide gas in steam systems.

• Chlorides (Cl^-) & Sulfates (SO_4^2-): Highly corrosive ions that rapidly accelerate pitting corrosion in stainless steel pipework.

• Nitrates (NO_3^-): Harmful inorganic compounds strictly regulated in food, beverage, and drinking water applications.

• Silica (SiO_2): Non-conductive dissolved solids that form an incredibly hard, glassy scale on high-pressure steam turbine blades if not completely stripped during demineralisation.

Engineered Demineralisation Systems for Irish Industry

One Eight Filtration provides turnkey design, commissioning, and maintenance of high-purity water plants across Ireland. Our systems are built to achieve the exact conductivity and resistivity standards required by your industry guidelines, whether you are managing an energy-generation boiler or a validated medical manufacturing line.

High-Purity Applications of Demineralised Water

Because of its exceptionally low conductivity and mineral-free profile, demineralisation is reserved for specialized industrial processes where even minor water impurities can lead to catastrophic asset failure or product contamination.

While demineralised water is utilized across countless bespoke applications, it is an absolute operational requirement in three core sectors:

• Power Generation: Protecting high-pressure boilers and multi-million euro steam turbines from scaling and volatile gas corrosion.

• Food & Beverage Processing: Serving as an ingredient-grade or final rinse water to maintain absolute biological safety and taste consistency.

• Electronics & Semiconductor Manufacturing: Providing ultra-pure micro-rinse streams for sensitive circuit board fabrication where micro-particles cause component shorts.

Demineralised Water in the Power Industry

In the power generation and energy sector, demineralised water is the lifeblood of boiler feed water systems and continuous steam generation loops.

Modern power facilities operate high-pressure boilers to generate the high-velocity steam needed to drive power-generation turbines. As operating pressures increase, the boiler’s tolerance for dissolved solids drops to near zero. Any minerals present in the water will instantly bake onto internal surfaces, destroying heat-transfer efficiency.

[Mains / Well Water] ──> [Demineralisation Plant] ──> [High-Pressure Boiler] ──> [High-Velocity Steam] ──> [Turbine Power]
                                                                ▲                                               │
                                                                └─────────── [Condensate Return] ◄──────────────┘
                                                                           (Requires Degassing)

The Condensate Return Loop & The Danger of Dissolved Gases

During the steam generation cycle, steam passes through the turbines, cools, and condenses back into liquid water. This condensate return is collected and recycled back into the boiler feed water loop to save energy and water.

While this recycled condensate is technically distilled, it acts like a sponge for ambient gases as it cools, leading to severe chemical vulnerabilities:

• Oxygen (O_2) Pitting: Dissolved oxygen in the feed water causes rapid, localized pitting corrosion on internal boiler pipes. This can burn through a heavy-gauge steel pipe in a remarkably short timeframe.

• Carbon Dioxide (CO_2) Acidification: Dissolved carbon dioxide reacts with the water to form carbonic acid. This drops the pH of the condensate, causing systemic thinning and corrosion of the condensate return lines.

Integrating Advanced Degassing with Demineralisation

To prevent these aggressive chemical reactions from degrading your plant infrastructure, a standard demineralisation plant must be paired with advanced gas removal technologies.

At One Eight Filtration, we engineer comprehensive boiler feed systems that integrate:

1. Membrane Degassing Modules: Utilizing specialized hydrophobic membranes to strip out dissolved CO_2 and O_2 inline without chemicals.

2. Thermal Deaeration Devices: Using physical pressure and heat changes to force dissolved gases out of the feed water stream before it enters the boiler.

3. Chemical Oxygen Scavengers: Injecting precise, monitored chemical dosing to neutralize any remaining trace molecules of oxygen, guaranteeing total system protection.

Demineralised Water in Refineries

Much like the power generation sector, oil and gas refineries operate continuous, high-pressure thermal processes that rely on large-scale steam generation. In these volatile, high-temperature environments, relying on simple water softening is entirely inadequate.

While water softeners remove hardness ions like calcium and magnesium, they leave behind total dissolved solids (TDS) and alkalinity. In high-pressure refinery boilers, these remaining impurities will rapidly cause foaming, carryover, and catastrophic scaling across internal process streams.

[Raw Water Source] ──> [Pre-Treatment] ──> [Membrane Filtration (RO/NF)] ──> [Ion Exchange Polishing] ──> [Refinery Process Stream]

To prevent this asset degradation, refineries utilise a multi-stage demineralisation process, typically combining membrane filtration (Reverse Osmosis or Nanofiltration) with ion exchange polishing. This delivers ultra-pure feed water that meets the strict, low-tolerance contamination thresholds required by heavy-gauge refinery boilers.

Petrochemical and Chemical Plant Applications

Chemical manufacturing and petrochemical synthesis demand absolute process control. Beyond providing ultra-pure boiler feed water to drive chemical reactions, demineralisation plays a critical role in managing a facility’s thermal efficiency and environmental footprint.

Cooling Tower Blowdown and Wastewater Minimisation

Industrial cooling towers lose vast amounts of water through evaporation. As pure water evaporates, the minerals and dissolved solids left behind become highly concentrated. To prevent this concentrated water from scaling the cooling tower infrastructure, a portion of it must be bled off—a process known as cooling tower blowdown.

Managing this blowdown effluent presents two distinct commercial and regulatory challenges for petrochemical plants:

• Environmental Compliance & Discharge Regulations: In Ireland, any industrial effluent returned to the environment or discharged into a publicly owned treatment works (POTW) must strictly comply with local municipal discharge regulations and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) licences.

• Rising Utility and Sewer Connection Fees: Discharging high volumes of mineral-heavy wastewater into municipal sewer lines can incur massive volumetric fees and heavy trade effluent charges.

The Financial Benefit of Demineralisation Systems

Integrating an advanced demineralisation or Reverse Osmosis system directly into your wastewater loop transforms a waste stream into an asset:

1. Water Recycling and Reuse: By processing cooling tower blowdown through a demineraliser, you strip out the highly concentrated salts and minerals, allowing the purified water to be safely recycled back into the plant.

2. Drastic Cost Reduction: Recycling your process water minimises the requirement to draw expensive new mains water and slashes your municipal sewer discharge volumes, avoiding heavy sewer connection and volumetric disposal fees.

3. Guaranteed Regulatory Compliance: Our tailored filtration systems ensure that any trace effluent that must leave your facility easily meets local municipal and EPA discharge thresholds, protecting your business from regulatory penalties.

Demineralised Water in the Food & Beverage Industry

In food and beverage production, water quality is directly tied to consumer safety, product shelf-life, and brand reputation. Because food safety regulations leave zero margin for error, facilities across Ireland require ultra-pure water at almost every stage of the manufacturing process.

From ingredient water blending to high-temperature equipment sanitisation, standard mains or well water is rarely pure enough. One Eight Filtration designs and installs high-purity demineralisation systems engineered to satisfy the most stringent food safety audits.

Key Applications in Food & Beverage Manufacturing

[Raw Water] ──> [Multi-Stage Membrane Filtration] ──> [Sterile Storage Loop] ──>  1. Product Ingredient Blending
                                                                                 2. Clean-in-Place (CIP) Sanitisation
                                                                                 3. Container Rinsing & Packaging

1. Sterile Container Rinsing & Packaging

Before any beverage or food product is filled, jars, cans, and bottles must be thoroughly rinsed to eliminate dust and chemical residues. Utilizing demineralised water ensures that containers dry completely spot-free, leaving no mineral film or white scaling that could alter the product’s appearance or taste.

2. Clean-in-Place (CIP) & Equipment Sanitisation

Process equipment, pasteurisers, and mixing vats must be regularly cleaned and sanitised using automated Clean-in-Place (CIP) cycles.

• The Problem: Hard water minerals can react with cleaning chemicals, reducing their effectiveness and leaving a stubborn mineral scale inside stainless steel pipework where bacteria can hide.

• The Solution: Demineralised water maximises the efficiency of sanitising agents, allows for lower chemical dosages, and ensures a pristine, sterile surface across all process loops.

3. Food Processing & Product Blending

Whether used as a direct ingredient in beverages or as a processing aid in food production, water must be a completely neutral baseline. Any variation in mineral content can alter product flavour, colour, and chemical stability.

Why Membrane Filtration is Mandatory for Food Safety

While traditional resin-based ion exchange effectively strips out minerals, it cannot remove uncharged biological contaminants. Because organic matter, bacteria, and viruses carry no net electrical charge, they can pass right through standard deionisation resin beds, creating a severe biohazard risk in a food facility.

To guarantee absolute compliance with European Union food safety standards, One Eight Filtration strictly implements membrane-based demineralisation technologies, including:

• Reverse Osmosis (RO) Systems: Utilizing microscopic physical barriers to reject up to 99% of dissolved mineral salts while completely blocking organic molecules, bacteria, and viruses.

• Nanofiltration (NF): Providing targeted organic material removal and partial demineralisation for specialized process streams.

• Integrated UV Disinfection: Pairing membrane systems with downstream ultraviolet sterilisers to ensure the ultra-pure water loop remains completely sterile and pyrogen-free.

Pharmaceuticals and Cosmetics

Deionised and distilled water are used in the manufacturing of pharmaceutical products and cosmetics in order to control product quality and safety.  Different methods of producing demineralised water for different uses such as rinsing and cleaning will be reverse osmosis or deionisation, while formulations typically use distilled water.

Other industries

Demineralised water are both used for cleaning and rinsing applications across a wide variety of industries, including chemical production, mining, also, solvents in applications as diverse as electrocoating, where they function as a carrier for paint solids or in research labs where they may be used to make a variety of solutions.