BOILER OPERATIONS

AREAS OF IMPROVEMENT

DATE 16 03 06

NCP DZ

BACKGROUND TO THE PROBLEM

The quality of feed water impurities for boiler water is too high to be tolerated by the
boilers.

INDICATION

This is evidenced by the results of boiler water analysis. The maximum specification
of suspended solids is 50ppm, but the results being obtained are above 300. This
causes the TDS to be well above specification and this is the case. High TDS means
the chances of scaling are increased.

CONSEQUENCES

This in turn means a lot of blow downs need to be carried out to remove these high
scaling agents. However doing this means loosing a lot of chemicals to the drain.
Infact this has been the case as indicated by the results of ph, alkalinities and sulphites
that are well below specification. These parameters need to be maintained at their
optimal levels and are very crucial to satisfy 3 main objectives: 1.Continous heat
exchange 2.corrosion protection 3.production of high quality steam.

Alternatively, to balance the increased blow down levels and to maintain boiler
chemical levels would be to increase significantly the dosage rates. The problem with
this route is that of high boiler chemical carryover in the steam and also the high cost
of chemicals.

SUGGESTED SOLUTION- EXTERNAL TREATMENT IN CONJUNCTION

WITH THE AVAILABLE INTERNAL TREATMENT.

This means passing the water through settling tanks and through a simple cation
exchange softener in conjunction with precipitation by softening.
For boilers, internal treatment only can constitute the unique treatment when boilers
operate at low/moderate pressures and when large amounts of condensed steam are
used for feed water, or when good quality raw material is available, which is not the
case at NCPDZ. Our boilers operate at 130 Kpa for 24 hrs a day for 365days, which is
quite high. The size of the softener plant is usually determined the amount of feed
steam which the work water engineers from companies like CERNOL, BHT or
HORIZON.

Compiled by

M. Chikarakara………………………….. NCPDZ CHEMIST