Best Boiler Cleaning Practices

Issue 2 and Volume 119.

2.13.15

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For power plants burning anything other than natural gas, boiler cleaning is an
important part of keeping the plant working efficiently.

Over time, boilers will build up ash that will form slag deposits on the boiler. Slag
acts as an insulation that protects the tube from the heat of the boiler, creating a
need to use more fuel to reach the same temperature and produce the same output
as a clean boiler. Cleaning slag deposits inside a boiler can increase boiler efficiency
between 1 percent and 4 percent. Clean boilers can also reduce emissions produced
by a power plant because less fuel is required to produce the same amount of
power.

While the importance of boiler cleaning is clear, power plant operators have many
options when it comes to techniques used to clear slag and ash buildup. Cleaning
practices vary from offline cleaning, which requires a planned outage, to online
cleaning that can occur while the plant is still operating. Methods can use everything
from sound waves to dynamite.

Acoustic cleaning
One option for boiler cleaning is an acoustic cleaning system, which can knock ash
off boiler tubes or selective catalytic reduction systems with acoustic energy without
risking damage or fatigue to the units. While this can be done by using acoustic
horns that can be retrofitted onto boilers, Advanced Acoustic Technologies LLC uses
a technique that is engineered specifically for a plant.
“Unlike the horn suppliers, our acoustic devices are part of an engineered, integrated
system where the frequency produced by the acoustic device is determined by 3D
element modeling,” AAT co-founder Robert van Dam said. The process is similar to
flow modeling, except the company looks at the acoustic aspects of how sound
waves behave in an enclosure.

The company’s WaveMaster Acoustic Cleaning systems provide continuous, online,

volume cleaning with soot blowers used in a remedial role, van Dam said. The
company uses acoustic modeling to determine the natural frequency of the flue gas
and decide the proper frequency for the custom system as well as where it needs to
be placed in the boiler.

“Our acoustic cleaners are designed to be operated continuously if that is required

for the application,” van Dam said. “There’s no erosion. It’s online, so it’s running
when the boiler is running, and by being specific with the frequency and the location
we can place the acoustic effective area where we want it. We’re not just cleaning
what is directly in front of our device. We’re cleaning a volume because the acoustic
cleaner is in resonance with flue gas.”

Acoustic cleaning works especially well on dry and dusty deposits, van Dam said.
The company works with areas where ash is below the fusion point, such as
horizontal tube banks in a utility boiler. The technology is not as effective in
superheaters or other other areas where the ash is likely partially molten.

According to van Dam, the company has seen excellent results on a wide variety of
fuels, including Powder River Basin, pet-coke, bituminous and sub-bituminous coals.
The fully-optimized sound field can penetrate throughout several tube banks with the
application of only one or two acoustic cleaners. Van Dam said the system is used to
clean the entire convection pass at Tennessee Valley Authority’s 1,300-MW
Cumberland plant, which is 67 rows of tubes, with two acoustic devices.

Water lances
Another method for cleaning slag from a boiler is using high-pressure water jets.
Thompson Industrial Services uses high-volume, specialized hydroblasting
equipment, with pumps that can send up to1,200 gallons per minute through the
hoses. The company also uses remote-controlled robotic cleaning systems and other
automated tools to clean boilers.

Thompson Senior Business Development Manager Carl Wise said the company is
able to use water lances for both online and offline cleaning, although whether online
cleaning is possible may depend on the specific boiler.

“You have to do online cleaning from strategic positions because you have to be
very careful spraying the water directly into the boiler while it’s operating,” he said.
“It’s an extremely critical process.”
Whether cleaning can be done while the boiler is online depends on the particular
boiler. Although the company routinely cleans boilers without having to shut them
down, Wise said it may not be possible in every situation.

Online cleaning has multiple advantages when it is possible, however.

“If you take a boiler completely down, it takes a lot of time to bring it back up,”
Thompson Senior Sales Representative Jim Walker said. “It saves the utility time
and money to have that boiler up and running when we do our deslagging.”

Because of the high-volume pumps, Wise said the company is able to clean farther
distances with their lances and can be more effective because the lance can go out
more than 40 feet on either side of the lance.

Thompson also performs many other types of cleaning for power plants, including
hot ash removal and using a process involving dry foam to remove combustible dust,
which can create a safety hazard on the external part of the boiler.

Soot blowers
Soot blowers use compressed air, steam or water to keep slag buildup from
occurring without the necessity of taking the plant offline. Soot blowers have been in
use for some time now, but, like many other aspects of power plants, are becoming
more sophisticated as time goes on.

“We have a basic technology, and we have our advanced technology, which we call
SmartClean,” said Tim Martin, director of product management for the boiler
efficiency product division with Clyde Bergemann Power Group Americas Inc.. “Our
basic technology does the bare minimum – it’ll keep the boiler clean and keep it
online and running. Our advanced technology is where we get into targeting the
areas of boilers that really need to be cleaned with the proper intensity, so we really
get into monitoring the boiler performance and adjusting the cleaning parameters in
real time, and that’s where the plant can gain efficiencies from using the advanced
technology.”

Intelligent soot blowing systems have several advantages over traditional systems,
Martin said. The company’s advanced technology can increase the efficiency by 1
percent over basic systems.

Intelligent soot blowing systems also only clean when necessary, which avoids boiler
tube erosion.

“Basic systems are blind to what’s going on inside the boiler,” Martin said. “There
may be areas in your boilers that are clean, but you’re running a soot blower
because it’s time in the sequence, so it’s blowing high pressure steam on a bare
tube, which can lead to erosion. In addition, you may have areas of your boiler that
foul much more quickly and because of the way the sequence is set up, it may not
be able to hit that area for several hours. In those hours, that area could really foul
up significantly and plug the boiler and cause a clinker or severely restrict the heat
transfer, forcing them to have a shutdown.”

Many coal-fired boilers built in the past 10 years were installed with intelligent soot
blower technology, Martin said. Clyde Bergemann is also working on retrofits for
power plants that weren’t originally equipped with intelligent soot blower technology.

Explosives
Using explosives to clean slag from boilers isn’t a new process, but it’s one still in
use that many plant operators prefer.

The method was first used by Norm Harty of N.B. Harty General Contractor Inc. Over
the years, Harty said he and his staff have built the procedure into a state-of-the art
technique that can quickly clean the slag from a boiler and have it back online.

To clean a boiler using explosives, Harty said his company will use primer cord
around tubes that are close to avoid damage. The cord has connectors to delay the
chargers, which he said is important to avoid destroying the wall or insulation of the
boiler.

Harty said using explosives has several advantages, including speed and
convenience. “With dynamite, you can put all of it in a pickup truck and clean any
boiler,” he said.

Explosives also have an advantage in areas where plants are concerned about
water use, he added.

“Water is really scarce out west, and this is another reason explosives are being
used predominately in the western plants,” he said. “They can’t afford to waste a
drop of water, and by using dynamite they’re able to save their water and clean their
boiler at the same time.”

The importance of boiler tube cleaning

Power plants burning anything other than natural gas will, over time, build up ash
that forms slag deposits on the exterior of the tubes running through the boiler. The
slag can be a safety hazard – the tubes expand and contract as they heat up and
cool down and the deposits may break off and fall, a problem that arises most
notably when a plant is taken offline for maintenance, Harty said.

Dirty boiler tubes can also affect the operation of a plant. Slag buildup on tubes will
act as an insulation protecting the tube from the heat of the boiler, requiring more
fuel to reach the same temperature and produce the same output as a clean boiler.
Harty said cleaning the slag deposits inside a boiler can increase boiler efficiency
from 1 percent to 4 percent.
“Even 2 to 3 percent in a boiler that generates 600 MW, that’s hundreds of
thousands of dollars each day or week,” he said. “They’re still burning the coal, but
the coal fire doesn’t get to the tube.”

Clean boilers can also help reduce the emissions produced by the plant because
less fuel is needed to produce the same amount of power, according to Tim Martin,
Director of Product Management for Clyde Bergemann Power Group Americas Inc.,
Boiler Efficiency Division.

Fuel switches leading to slag deposits

Slag deposits can be caused by multiple sources. Harty said older boilers, especially
in the eastern U.S., were much smaller because the plants were burning high-sulfur
eastern coal with a high Btu output. Less fuel was needed to produce the required
heat, and the boilers did not produce as much ash.

Although soot cleaning

systems may be used to
clean a boiler without taking
it offline, a plant with older
online systems may require
a shutdown. Photo courtesy
of Norm Harty.

The high-sulfur coal released more pollutants into the air, so plants began using
western coal, such as Powder River Basin coal, in their fuel mix. Western coals
create more ash and produces less Btus, requiring more fuel for the same
temperature. Plants that burn lignite, often located along the Missouri River, require
even more fuel. Those boilers might be twice as large as a Midwest plant built to
burn western coal and three or four times as large as plants built to burn eastern
coal, many of which are being decommissioned right now, Harty said.
Fuel switches can create a problem in a plant. If more ash is produced than the
plant’s current system can handle, the slag buildup can become uncontrollable over
time. This can happen when units are burning Powder River Basin coals or other
coals that have low melting points for the ash or significant sodium levels, which
makes the ash more tenacious in areas such as the convection pass, said Joel
Booher, a business manager for Diamond Power.

“Unless the furnace box is very large, what you’ll see is the boiler eventually can’t
take it anymore, and you’ll have uncontrollable slag formation,” Booher said. “That
was what we were fighting against.”

Changes in the way coal plants are used

As power plants operators use coal plants differently, the methods of cleaning the
boilers have changed. Although coal plants previous ran at full load as much as
possible, the drop in price of natural gas has caused many owners to cycle the
plants more so that they’re not always running at full load.

“It’s been a huge change in the way the coal plants are operated,” Booher said. “Not
only is natural gas at record lows, which causes coal plants to be dispatched lower,
but there’s also extensive renewables online now. So in a place like Texas, where
many large coal plants are designed to run full load, these are now up and down on
load.”

Harty said that bringing the boiler down and back up can create some efficiency for
the plant by partially removing the slag through cycling. Boiler tubes will expand up
to 18 inches from top to bottom when hot, and the expansion and contraction of the
tubecan knock off slag.

Jeff Kite, principal engineer for boiler performance at Diamond Power, said boilers in
plants that are being cycled more often don’t have to be cleaned as often, but the
boilers were not designed to be cycled so it makes it difficult on operations in
general.

“Supercritical units do not easily accommodate being asked to go from full load to
half load on a regular basis,” Booher added. “They’re designed to be run at stable
high loads, and it’s hard on the metal throughout the boiler to be cycled up and
down.”

Current cleaning systems

Most power plants have some sort of soot blower system that works to clean the
plant when the boiler is online and producing power, Martin said. Soot blower
systems have been around since at least the 1930s, he said, adding thaThe has
seen photographs of soot blowers that were operated by a chain raised and lowered
by a hand-operated crank.

Soot blowers and other online cleaning systems use compressed air, steam or water
to keep slag buildup from occurring without the necessity of taking the plant offline.
As companies look for solutions that allow the plant to keep operating, newer soot
blowing systems may allow a plant to keep its boilers clean without requiring a
planned maintenance where the boiler is taken offline, although older systems may
require a shutdown for cleaning.

“Some of the online cleaning products might be 20 years old,” Martin said. “Once
slag becomes a problem, their cleaning devices aren’t strong enough or in the proper
location to remove it.”

If buildup reaches a point the online cleaning products installed by the plant are
unable to remove the slag, the plant must be taken offline for cleaning. Offline
cleaning may involve water jets, compressed air or dynamite.

Using dynamite to clean boiler tubes

Harty said that older methods being used for offline cleaning when he first started
cleaning boilers were “very crude” and could involve using shotguns to fire slugs at
tubes to knock off slag or using a large iron ball suspended on a chain or chisels and
hammers to strike the tubes to remove any build up.

“It was one massive thing to do, and it was very dangerous,” he said. “They had a lot
of people get hurt.”

Modern methods of offline boiler tube cleaning have made many improvements over
older methods, and Harty said using dynamite as a method of offline cleaning has
multiple advantages over other methods, such as high-pressure water, with one of
those being that no moisture is introduced into the boiler.

“The water and moisture will go down into the ash tanks and set like concrete
because that slag is in such a fine state,” he said. “They buy that right now to put in
concrete and strengthen the concrete. If you dry clean it with explosives, you don’t
have any moisture and the slag will fall into the hopper and down into the grinder and
out the sluice area.”

Harty also said he can reduce downtime for plants that have to be taken offline for
cleaning. Whereas using high pressure water requires setting up pipes and hoses,
dynamite can be used quickly and with less equipment. He added that his company
recently cleaned a boiler in Nevada in less than 36 hours.

“Downtime is money,” he said. “Downtime is loss of revenue. That’s why they want
you in and want you out.”

Using dynamite to clean slag is popular in western coal plants because of the need
to conserve water, he said.

“Water is really scarce out west, and this is another reason explosives are being
used predominately in the western plants,” he said. “They can’t afford to waste a
drop of water, and by using dynamite they’re able to save their water and clean their
boiler.”
In order to clean a tube using explosives, Harty said his company will use primer
cord around tubs that are close together to avoid damage. The cord has connectors
that will delay the charges. Without using the connectors, he said the process could
destroy the wall or insulation of the boiler.

Sticks of dynamite can be used in more open places where there is a heavy amount
of slag. Harty said he has seen slag reach 60 to 70 feet deep in some boilers. At one
point, his company cleaned 150 truckloads of slag from a boiler, though he called
that “an extreme case.”

Improvements in online boiler cleaning

Many companies would prefer to not take their plants offline for cleaning, and both
Diamond Power and Clyde Bergemann have developed online cleaning solutions
that are improvements over the previous soot blowers.

Previous soot blowers had “simplistic controls,” Kite said. Although the operator of
the system was able to make a sequence and run the devices in order, operators
were unable to get any sort of feedback without a visual inspection of the boiler.

“Realistically, it wasn’t until the ‘90s that we started implementing heat transfer
sensors, which are devices made out of sections of boiler tubing placed within the
cleaning radius of the water lances that provide feedback of heat transfer and can be
used to determine how clean or dirty that section is,” Kite said.

Older soot blower systems might also utilize an “across-the-boiler” system, where a
nozzle will need to spray water across a 60-foot space in order to reach the place
that needed to be cleaned. That system might use 200 gallons of water per minute,
which, after hitting the hot boiler tube, could create more steam than the boiler could
handle and even cause a change in the power produced by the boiler.

“Many units have induced draft fans that really run on the ragged edge, and they
can’t handle that extra gas volume going through there,” Booher said. “Oftentimes
these high-flow cleaning devices can cause disturbances of the unit.”

Modern systems can use retractable soot blowers, such as Diamond’s Power
HydroJet™ water cleaning systems, allowing less water to be used since less force
can be used over the shorter distance. Systems using retractable soot blowers can
create a 60 or 70 percent water use reduction and provide as much or better
cleaning effectiveness, Kite said.

The systems can also interpret where the boiler is developing a buildup of slag,
which can help operators avoid attempting to clean sections of tube that are already
clean. If water or steam hits a clean section of a boiler tube, it can cause tube
erosion over time. Cold water hitting a hot tube can also cause the tube to contract,
leading to tube damage and a possible blow out.
“Water cleaning can damage tubes if done improperly,” Kite said. “If an operator has
this wonderful tool that can clean his boiler, he has a habit of using it too much if he
doesn’t have input coming back to him letting him know what’s going on.”

Modern systems use a variety of solutions to provide “intelligent soot blowing,” which
can help prevent outages and damage to the boiler.

Goal-based intelligent soot blowing

Intelligent soot blowing, or ISB, uses automatic control systems to analyze the
cleaning needs of the boiler. Introduced in the ‘90s, it is becoming the standard for
boilers, Booher said, with many new boilers using an ISB system. Improvements can
still be made on previous generation of intelligent soot blowing systems, however.

“What is coming to light is that these systems can be complicated in their

calculations, and so they can be difficult for the operations staff to understand in
order to make the right decisions,” he said. “Goal-based ISB uses intelligent soot
blowing to achieve the goals the operators already want to achieve – keeping steam
temperature in the right range or keeping their gas temperatures in the right range.
It’s simpler and quicker to commission.”

Although gas temperature may be a common goal for many boiler operators, Booher
said different operators may have a different goal that is important to them. Diamond
Power will work with the plant engineering staff to configure the ISB system, and if a
goal can be quantified, it can be incorporated into the system.

Once the system is in place, it will analyze data from individual cleaning devices
installed in the system and that device’s ability to impact the goals set by the plant
operator. Ultimately, the system will allow an operator to clean tubes only when and
where they need cleaning.

“The idea would be to use it as little as possible because it can cause damage to the
unit,” Booher said. “If the system can automatically determine where to clean and
which blowers make the biggest effect, then in the end you can end up blowing less
soot blowers to maintain the same general boiler cleanliness.”

Variable pressure blowers

Clyde Bergemann has also introduced a variation in intelligent soot blowing that uses
variable pressure when cleaning boiler tubes. Martin said the goal of the system is to
provide just enough pressure to clean the tube to avoid creating any damage.

“We could go in with a very, very high pressure, and we know that whatever is on the
tube is going to be cleaned, but there’s a downside to that, and that’s tube erosion,”
he said. “What the SMART Clean™ does is look at cleaning with the proper intensity.
We clean with just enough intensity to clean the ash off the tube, but not too much
intensity to cause tube erosion.”
The system is designed to create maximum efficiency for the plant. By keeping slag
from building up on the tubes, the plant is able to operate with maximum heat
transfer, and by avoiding erosion, the operator can prevent future tube leaks that can
shut down the boiler in a forced outage.

Martin said the system can save money for a plant operator by completely
eliminating planned outages to clean the tubes. He said the company has clients
with boilers that were going offline every three months who eliminated the problem
by installing the SMART Clean™ system. Those boilers only come down for typical
maintenance issues now, he said.

He added the system is not a large investment for a boiler operator, and the
investment will be returned within six months to a year, with the owner of the boiler
receiving the benefits of not requiring outages for the next 20 years.

Each job requires a different approach, and not all of the SMART Clean™ products
may not be necessary.

“We use a lot of different techniques,” Martin said. “Some are more advanced than
others. Really, every boiler is unique. We look at it from a fresh perspective and look
at their specific needs, and then we can propose the right technology to meet those
needs.”

Interior tube cleaning

Although cleaning slag from the inside of the boiler and exterior of the boiler tubes is
a key aspect of keeping a boiler efficient, cleaning any deposits that may form on the
interior of the tubes is also important.

If deposits from impurities in the water form on the interior of a tube, it can create an
insulation problem, according to George Bodman of George H. Bodman Inc.

“if you put a tenth of an inch of scale in there, your temperature will go from 600
degrees farenheit to probably 700 to 750 degrees farenheit,” he said. “If that tube
gets to 809 degrees farenheit, the tube is going to blow out.”

Scaling can also reduce the efficiency of the boiler by requiring more heat, and
corrosion can form under the scale that will create a hole in the tube itself.

The process of removing the scale is individualized for each tube, Bodman said, and
the preplanning for the cleaning should start at least six months in advance by
getting a tube sample of the boiler. The sample can be used to determine the deposit
weight density as well as the scale matrix.

Bodman said he also talks to the water treatment representatives to find out what
has previously been done and why the deposit has formed. The next step after that
is to speak with plant personnel and the plant chemist or relibility engineer to set up
a program on how to remove the deposit.
Around 90 percent of boilers are are currently chemically cleaned, Bodman said,
although some can be cleaned with high-pressure water.

Plant operators can choose to use a variety of chemicals, including hydrochloric

acid, ethalene diamene tetracedic acid (EDTA) and hydroxyaceticformic acid.

EDTA is more expensive, but also has less environmental impact, Bodman said. It
requires 13.6 pounds of EDTA to remove one pound of iron oxide. The same amount
of iron oxide can be removed by 2.5 pounds of citric acid or 1.58 pounds of
hydrochloric acid.

“When you look at costs, I can clean a 30,000 gallon boiler for around $50,000 to
$60,000,” he said. “Cleaning that same boiler with EDTA will cost you over
$100,000.”

Bodman said his company will run solubility tests with hydrocholic acid, citric acid
and EDTA and allow the company to choose the method used.

Once the cleaning starts, he said it takes approximately 2 to 3.5 days. Depending on
the boiler and water treatment, some boilers require cleaning every two years, while
other boilers, like ones used in paper mills, may be cleaned every five to seven
years.

A variety of options
Although boiler tube cleaning is a very important part of the industry, choosing the
right method for a boiler is up to the operator. Modern advances in the industry,
however, can make the process simpler and safer than it used to be, however.

“Soot blowing has really changed over the years, going from a product that you just
install and turn on into really getting more into the engineering aspect and studying
how it affects the boiler performance,” Martin said.

Whether an operator chooses to install a new online system or use an offline system,
each boiler may have different problems and require a unique solution to reach
maximum efficiency. For Harty, who went from blasting passes for roadways to using
dynamite to clean multi-million dollar pieces equipment almost 50 years ago and has
seen cleaning systems continue to evolve during that time, finding solutions to
unique problems is a familiar concept.

Proper Circulation Critical to Effective

Boiler Cleaning
Issue 5 and Volume 105.
5.1.01

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By Brad Buecker, CEDA Inc.

Ellis Loper, City, Water, Light & Power

In the 1960s and early 1970s, the cyclone boiler was a popular choice for new coal-
fired power plants. Cyclone combustion produces a high heat output while
maximizing combustion efficiency. The primary drawback to cyclone fuel burning is
high NOx production, which has led some utilities to switch to other combustion
techniques. Nonetheless, many cyclone units are still in operation throughout the
country. The unique configuration of the cyclone barrel, however, can make internal
tube cleaning difficult. This article addresses a straightforward method to improve
chemical cleaning of cyclone boilers.
The cyclone tubes’ U-shape configuration and typically small diameters (Figure 1)
complicate access and hamper cleaning effectiveness. While boiler waterwall tubes
may range from 2 inches to 4 inches in diameter in natural circulation boilers,
cyclone tubes are often 1 inch or less in diameter. When hydrochloric acid (HCl) is
the chemical solvent, cyclone tube cleaning usually proceeds smoothly. HCl is a very
aggressive chemical that quickly removes deposits through static soak methods. The
plant owner’s greatest concern with HCl cleanings, after corrosion, is settling of
solids and sludge in the cyclone tubes and headers. These deposits may themselves
initiate corrosion unless they are neutralized and rinsed prior to boiler startup.

From HCl to EDTA

Due to corrosion and safety issues, many plant personnel now prefer to clean boilers
with the chelant, tetraammonium EDTA, despite its longer cleaning times (the iron
stage in an HCl clean is usually limited to six hours, while the iron removal stage in
an EDTA clean may take from 12 to 36 hours). The EDTA solution is alkaline, and a
typical cleaning is performed at a pH of 9 to 9.5. The process usually consists of an
iron removal stage followed by copper removal. Common practice for iron removal
calls for the boiler to be filled with a 5 percent EDTA solution followed by ignitor and
light-off burner firing until the liquid temperature reaches about 280 F. This increases
the reactivity of the chemical, but keeps temperatures below 300 F, which is where
significant decomposition of EDTA begins.

In natural circulation units following the initial firing, the boiler must be repeatedly
cooled (to about 240 F) and then re-fired to assist with solvent circulation. A very
important supplementary step is continuous mechanical circulation of the chemical.
This is done through connection of the boiler circuits to a contractor-supplied pump
as shown in Figure 2. The pump pulls chemical from the boiler headers and returns it
to the steam drum. This promotes distribution of the chemical throughout the boiler.
Following iron removal, the solution is allowed to cool to approximately 150 F. An
oxidizing agent is then injected into the solution for copper removal.

Click here to enlarge image

For forced-circulation units, intermittent firing is not required to assist with solvent
recirculation. One of the boiler recirculation pumps is usually kept in service, while
the others are isolated, to move the material through the waterwall circuits.