Gasket Technology - Victaulic

Victaulic utilizes various in-house advanced testing procedures and equipment to evaluate the temperature-decomposition profile of material, compression and pressure tests, joint performance in service under minimum and maximum conditions, and independent lab verification.

Research and development are a core focus at Victaulic. Recently, the Victaulic engineering team developed solutions for microbial growth in Reverse Osmosis (RO) systems.

Microbial growth in RO systems:

affects water quality
accelerates membrane bio-fouling
decreases system recovery rates
increases facility costs and decreases productivity

Project engineers researched EPDM compounds with the objective to design a “clean” compound by eliminating all possible organic nutrients that might support microbial growth.

Figure 1: Shows typical biomass sample scraped from a rubber plate.

TEST AND RESULTS:
Microbiological resistance of eight Victaulic gasket compounds labelled A through H and two competitor gasket compounds X and Y, were evaluated using the Biomass Volume as the qualitative indicator. Tested anti-microbial agents were not found to provide efficient protection (e.g. Trial B). Very few ingredients were identified with little or no biomass formation, and from this the Victaulic Trial G compound was optimized using such ingredients.

CONCLUSION:
An important step in reducing microbial fouling in RO systems is the careful selection of wetted system components including elastomeric materials. The proprietary Victaulic Trial G compound was specially reformulated with ingredients that were identified as non-supportive of microbiological growth and performed more than 75 times better than competitor’s available potable water approved compounds.

Figure 2: Shows the amount of biomass formed per 800cm² rubber specimen for 11 different EPDM compounds after the 12-week immersion. Similar results were also obtained with Mean Dissolved Oxygen Difference (MDOD) and Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) methods.

For more information on Victaulic gaskets read submittal 05.01.