The dissipation of ambient or process heat in large HVAC systems, manufacturing facilities, power generation plants, refineries, metal mills and forges, chemical plants and food processors is most often accomplished by cooling towers. These simple structures facilitate the transfer of unwanted energy (heat) from a transport liquid (usually water) to the atmosphere. The bane of cooling towers, with relation to efficient heat transfer and pathological risks to employees, is suspended solids. These solids can originate in the process, in the piping, from the atmosphere or from internal biological growth. Side-stream filtration is the most commonly used method of maintaining minimal suspended solids in the cooling system. Present-day systems rely mainly on two established methods of suspended solids removal. The first utilizes cyclonic principles that are highly efficient at removing high specific gravity solids. The other method is granular media filtration that is generally efficient at removing low specific gravity organic solids. Automatic self-cleaning screen filter technology not only removes both organic and inorganic solids regardless of specific gravity but also requires very little energy to operate and conserves coolant additives by using very little coolant liquid for the self-cleaning process. By incorporating the cleaning cycle into the blow-down process of the cooling tower system, the unwanted loss of any coolant can be completely eliminated.

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