FEDERAL URDU UNIVERSITY OF ARTS, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

GULSHAN-E-IQBAL CAMPUS
KARACHI

DR. ARMAN TABASSUM

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY
INDUSTRIAL CHEMISTRY (CHEM-521)
MSc I, (Semester I)

Unit: Water, Conditioning and Treatment for

Industrial Purposes

Topic: Internal Treatment of Water

Date: 5th Jan 2021
 A boiler is a vessel used for converting the heat liberated by the combustion
of a fuel, into water or steam.
 It is a pressure vessel, designed to withstand the steam pressure needed in a
works, and can be very dangerous if not correctly operated and maintained.
An economiser, air heater, or superheater fitted to the boiler will enable
even more of the heat liberated from the fuel to be used.
 Superheaters increase the temperature of steam and are often necessary to
render it suitable for use in a turbine or engine.

BOILER
• Combustion boilers are designed to use the chemical energy in fuel to raise the
energy content of water so that it can be used for heating and power
applications.
• Many fuels are fired in boilers, but the most common types of fuel include coal,
oil, and natural gas.
• During the combustion process, oxygen reacts with carbon, hydrogen, and
other elements in the fuel to produce a flame and hot combustion gases.
• As these gases are drawn through the boiler, they cool as heat is transferred to
water.
• Eventually the gases flow through a stack and into the atmosphere.
• As long as fuel and air are both available to continue the combustion process,
heat will be generated.
• Boilers are manufactured in many different sizes and configurations depending
on the characteristics of the fuel, the specified heating output, and the required
emissions controls.
• Some boilers are only capable of producing hot water, while others are
designed to produce steam

COMBUSTION IN BOILERS
 Boilers are commonly subdivided into watertube or firetube units. These
designations reflect the way the water and combustion gases are designed to pass
through the unit.
 ï Boilers are sometimes classified by their heat sources. For example, boilers are
often referred to as oil-fired, gas-fired, coal-fired, or solid fuel-fired boilers. Coal-fired
boilers can be further divided based on the equipment used to fire the boiler. The
three major coal-fired boiler subclasses are pulverized-coal (PC) fired, stoker-fired,
and fluidized-bed combustion (FBC) boilers.
 ï Boilers are occasionally distinguished by their method of fabrication. Packaged
boilers are assembled in a factory, mounted on a skid (or slide), and transported to
the site as one package ready for hookup to auxiliary piping. Shop-assembled
boilers are built up from a number of individual pieces or subassemblies. After these
parts are aligned, connected, and tested, the entire unit is shipped to the site in
one piece. Field-erected boilers are too large to transport as an entire assembly.
They are constructed at the site from a series of individual components. Sometimes
these components require special transportation and lifting considerations
because of their size and weight.

TYPES OF BOILERS
STEAM BOILER
 DECREASING ORDER OF SCALE FORMATION:
CaCO3 > CaSO4 > Silica > SrCO3 > BaSO4 > CaF2 > CaSiO3 > MgSiO3 > Ca3(PO4)2 > Fe(OH)2
Water used for industrial purposes should be free from hardness-producing salts,
suspended impurities, dissolved gases, etc., The process of reducing hardness level by
removing the hardness causing salts from water is known as Softening or conditioning
of water. Softening can be achieved by:

i) Internal treatment: Chemicals are added to the water in the boiler to remove
hardness producing salts. This is known as internal conditioning.

ii) External treatment

SOFTENING OR CONDITIONING
 This process is used in internal conditioning of boiler water, cooling and process
water.
 Orthophosphate such as trisodium phosphate and complex phosphates scuh as
sodium hexametaphosphate are both used in steam boilers to precipitate whatever
small amounts of calcium ion reach the boiler water through the pretreatment
system or by leakage through the condensor.
 Sodium hexametaphosphate is advantageous where the boiler water naturally
tends to become too alkaline because it reduces this excess alkalinity by reverting
to an acid orthophosphate in the boiler.
 Sodium hexametaphosphate is also widely used for minimizing the corrosion and
pickup of iron by water in circulating cooling systems, in plant water distribution
systems, and in municipal systems.