Industrial Water Softeners: Find the Best Softeners for Every Industry

High-performance industrial water softeners are designed to minimize your costs and downtime while providing high-quality water. The top industrial water softener systems are proven, easy to use, highly reliable, and highly efficient in their salt and water use. See the best industrial water options below.

These water softeners are the top options for industrial and commercial applications because they can handle requirements for the highest water softener performance and reliability. Typical water softening applications for these water softeners include boilers (also see the best condensate polishers), manufacturing processes, healthcare environments, pharmaceutical production, food & beverage plants, and power generation, plus large buildings and facilities such as schools, hotels, correctional facilities, and hospitals. Click on the tabs below to see industrial water softeners that utilize steel tanks, FRP (fiberglass), condensate polishers (stainless steel), as well as bulk brine tanks and hardness monitors that can minimize your operating costs and maximize reliablity.

For critical softening applications, the unique, patented Zero Hardness™ failsafe water softeners utilize engineering innovations to provide even greater industrial water softening efficiency, plus more capacity, higher flow rates, higher system reliability, and lower operating costs. The Zero Hardness™ industrial water softeners can meet the exacting demands of your industry and are built to reduce your water softening cost and maintenance issues.

Are you uncertain of your current water quality and hardness? Get free water hardness testing from Nancrede Engineering.

How Do Industrial Water Softeners Work?

Industrial water softeners utilize hydraulic or pneumatic valves, which feature a co-current regeneration sequence based upon elementary principles of iron exchange. Initially, strong acid cation resin in the sodium (Na +1) form is placed into service. During the sodium cation exchange industrial water softening process, sodium ions are exchanged for undesirable quantities of calcium (Ca +2), magnesium (Mg +2), and iron (Fe +2). Sodium ions already present in the water being softened pass through the process unchanged. Upon exhaustion of the resin (as indicated by unacceptable hardness leakage), a regeneration sequence involving sodium chloride (NaCl) is utilized. The generation sequence reverses the above process and converts the strong acid cation resin back to the sodium form for the subsequent water softening cycle.

Industrial water softening capacities range from 20,000 to 30,000 grains per cubic foot depending upon the total dissolved solids content of the water, the effluent water quality desired, and the amount of sodium chloride regenerant used. It should be noted that although the water is softened, the total dissolved solids content remains unchanged. Further, the effluent contains the same amount of anions as the raw water. The equipment is co-currently operated (down-flow exhausted; down-flow regenerated). All industrial water softening models have five distinct cycles of operation:

• Service – softening process; down-flow
• Backwash – hydraulic cleaning; up-flow
• Brine inject – restores resin to sodium form; down-flow
• Slow rinse – displaces residual brine; down-flow
• Fast flush – prepares softening resin for service cycle; down-flow.