Bardac® LF 18 — A Novel Cooling Water Algaecide

By Phil Sweeny, Dean Lammering, and Luis Jimenez, Ellen Meyer, and Karlee Barton

The active ingredient in Bardac® LF 18 is dioctyl dimethyl ammonium chloride. This product comes in two concentrations: -10WT (10% w/w) and -50WT (50% w/w). Several chemical properties of this product yield key benefits that set it apart from other industrial cooling water products. It is a quaternary ammonium compound (quat). Quats are typically low cost and highly effective biocides for a broad spectrum of organisms. However, quats can have a propensity to form a stable foam when agitated and can interact with polyacrylate (a scale-inhibiting additive commonly used in industrial cooling water), increasing both polyacrylate and quat usage costs. However, Bardac® LF 18 does not have these negative characteristics, making it desirable as an industrial cooling water algaecide.