Aerisa Ionization Odor Control Unit

A Jaded Operator's Honest Opinion

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The MAU and Ionization Odor Control

There is nothing quite like getting sold an expensive piece of equipment, only to be told that company is getting out of the wastewater sector and basically won’t be supporting the product. That’s even worse when the product doesn’t work well from day one. Enter the Aerisa ionization unit that was installed at the new influent in my wastewater plant. It is a part of the make up air unit, and I’m actually still a little fuzzy on who actually supplied the makeup air unit itself as it seems Aerisa is out of the wastewater sector and I was dealing with a different entity now. I don’t want to name that company as I’m not sure how much responsibility they hold in this whole debacle. I will say this however, the ionization worked well and did in fact eliminate odors in my influent building… for like a week. One by one each ionization unit would fault out and we would have to replace either fuses or bulbs in each unit. At the time, the bulbs were $150 a bulb and there are six per unit, and we have twelve total units. You can do the rough math on that. After dealing with the sales rep who sold us the equipment (who I might add was and is helpful in troubleshooting this system), I was sent up the line to the VP of engineering of this other company who supported this system. I’m not sure if they acquired Aerisa or if they were just assisting at the behest of the sales rep. The VP of engineering of this company gave a bunch of recommendations and none of them have corrected the issues. Make sure your air filters are clean, not wet, etc. Check. Most of the time the filters were just fine and it definitely didn’t let moisture into the ionization part of the MAU. Once we proved that it wasn’t the filters, we were then asked to make sure to not overtighten the bulbs. We did exactly as we were told on start up in regards to replacing and tightening bulbs, and even the start up units that were installed by the company cracked and failed. So then we moved on to it potentially being issues with our power, and even though I had numerous electrical studies done at the facility before and after the upgrade. They still insisted it may be a power issue. I worked with the design electrical engineers and supplied data from the power company itself. It wasn’t the main power either. So per the recommendation of this company, we installed varistors on a few test units. We were told this should address any electrical surge issues. Guess what? That didn’t work either. So it’s not the filters, and it’s not the power, so what’s left? My conclusion is that there are some major design flaws with this unit, considering how sensitive it appears to be at the slightest voltage variance, dust, moisture, properly tightened ionization bulb, or an operator mistakenly coughing outside the unit. Yes, I’m being hyperbolic but the hyperbole only matches the intensity of my frustration with this entire unit.

Ionization units

If you think it was just the ionization unit I had problems with on this MAU, you’d be wrong. It supplies heating and makeup air to the entire building while working in tandem with the ionization units. The MAU was shipped with no wiring diagram and the first winter the second stage heating wouldn’t turn on. I had the HVAC company that did the install of this unit come out and work on it and even they had issues getting the second stage going. It took a bit of troubleshooting and work but we managed to get heat on for the winter. It wasn’t until I repeatedly e-mailed the man from the company that now was supporting this unit that I was able to get a wiring diagram.

I don’t like to be this pointed on an article, but this is a reality many municipalities face. These companies know they can get away with it too because there is basically zero accountability on the companies and engineers, and they just collect a check and move on to the next project. They also know that most municipalities move at a snail’s pace and by the time anything gets around to other places, it’s likely way too late. All this creates an environment ripe for exploitation. Look, I get it, not everything always works according to plan and there was a weird transition where one company got out of the business and another took over this segment of the business. I am thankful they helped as much as they did. However, it hasn’t worked for more than a week straight since start-up and that’s just ridiculous to me. This is the main odor control unit in my headworks building that was billed as the hot new thing and now the municipality is stuck with it.

Units inside the MAU

That’s the story of my brand new MAU that doesn’t work very well. I’ve been doing my due diligence and following up with the rep and trying some additional things to see if we can get this to full functionality. I am not very hopeful. As of this writing we were trying some thicker ionization bulbs that are around $300 dollars a piece. That also failed to remedy the situation and is definitely not in the budget to keep replacing those bulbs at that price. So let this be a warning: really vet the equipment you choose for your plant. Hopefully more and more people will post there experiences online and we can start bringing some accountability to the industry. It appears Aerisa as a company rebranded to a different name or completely went out of business but I can’t seem to find out much more information on it, and that is a part of the systemic problem within this industry. There is too much reliance on engineers and salesmen who have never actually had to operate the equipment they sell or operate the plants they design, and they have a monopoly on the flow of information. I’ve been in the industry over ten years and the amount of equipment that is trash that gets sold is astounding, and there isn’t a ton of transparency on what works and what doesn’t. Let’s change that. Post reviews online, call other plants, join all the wastewater groups and convey your experiences. We desperately need unbiased end-user information, and I hope I am helping in some way to do that.

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