I prob should have included the disclaimer that these are pilot batches for a micro start-up I'm part of, so some options (like boiling specifically) eventually won't be realistic from an efficiency stand point. Lime softening is definitely something we have been looking into, however...so really appreciate the comments there.
Right, and from my understanding our water will almost surely be alkaline and not very hard (~50 ppm Ca and ~10 ppm Mg). From a water analysis that should be similar to ours, I've been estimating that we'll be around 200-250 ppm CaCO3. Given this, is lime softening likely going to be our best option? We'll have no issue adding back Ca since our water is also very low in chloride/sulfate.
Our chloride and sulfate will likely both be very low (~20-30 ppm) based off water reports I've seen near us.
As far as adding acid, I was under the impression that the acid reacted w/ the bicarbonate to reduce alkalinity, but also would leave behind sulfate, choride, lactate, etc depending on the particular acid being used. To me this seemed like a potential benefit since our chloride/sulfate levels are so low. Couldn't we just add hydrochloric/sulfuric acid and bump our low sulfate/chloride levels as well?