"The presence of free chlorine or other oxidizing agents
in the feed water can lead to resin degradation over time.
The maximum recommended levels of free chlorine are 0.3 ppm
to / > 30C). Iron and other heavy metals catalyze the
oxidative degradation of cation exchange resins.
Oxidation of strong acid cation exchange resins, causes
de-crosslinking of the polymer matrix, leading to an
increase in the water retention capacity of the resin and
resin swelling. This may cause a weakening of the
mechanical integrity of the resin and loss of wet volume
capacity. Temperature, chlorine concentration, and the
presence of heavy metals impacts the rate of resin oxidation
and de-crosslinking. Like chlorine, chloramines, chlorine
dioxide and ozone also have oxidizing potential. Chlorine
dioxide has a somewhat greater oxidizing effect on resin and
chloramines have a somewhat lesser oxidizing effect than
chlorine."
DOW Corporation
All regular ion-exchange based
water softening, conditioning and filtration systems can
degrade at a minimum average rate of 5% - 15% per year
without performance enhancing additives.
In fact, some systems may have even faster attrition rates.
Structured Matrix resins will
tend to have the slowest attrition
rate.
This natural attrition loss
causes a reduction in functional resin capacity.
Physical resin loss can also occur, but doesn't always
necessarily occur at the same rate.
Attrition loss should be
compensated for every year by adjusting your system capacity
or augmenting the resin bed with additional ion exchange
media.
Attrition is exacerbated by
factors such as high water consumption, inadequate
regenerations, elevated chlorine levels, iron & heavy metals
in water as well as other complicating factors.
Common Symptoms of Resin
Attrition
1.
Your water doesn't feel as good as it should every day
2.
Slight to major water pressure drop
3.
Possible water discoloration in severe cases
4.
Your system needs to clean more often than before to provide
uniformly soft water
The Solution to Resin
Attrition
During your annual
multipoint inspections or tune-ups, system programming can simply be adjusted to
accommodate for normal, expected resin attrition. If you
are particularly water quality conscious, you could also
augment your existing resin bed to accommodate for attrition
loss.
