Boiler Water Treatment
Boiler water treatment is one type of industrial water treatment which is focused on removing both organic and inorganic elements that can cause damages to the boiler. Water treatment takes places to avoid scaling, corrosion, or foaming. Raw or feed boiler water is treated before the contaminants/impurities reach the boiler. Internal boiler water treatment’s purpose is to prevent dissolving of the boiler and to keep contaminants in certain formations and levels that do not harm it or cause a blow down.
Water can be easily and quickly heated when exposed to a temperature rise than any other inorganic matter. When it evaporates and turns into steam at atmospheric pressure it dilates by one thousand and six hundred times. While in form of steam, it is charged with a huge amount of heat, and with these special characteristics water has it makes a special element for boilers, heaters and power generators.
There are basically many types of boilers, among them are only two types of boilers that are mostly and widely used today. There is the fire tube boiler and the water tube boiler. Both have different yet opposite mechanism of operation. The fire tube boiler has its heat source located inside a furnace or a fire box that is surrounded by water. This is in order to maintain the temperature of the heating surface below the boiling point.
As in case water tube boilers, it is completely the opposite. Water and steam flow inside the tubes and the hot gases flow over the outside surface. The circulation system in the water tube boiler is constructed of tubes, headers, and drums joined in arrangement that provide water flow to generate steam.
Boiler Make up Water
Water contains both suspended and dissolved solids and gases in assorted quantities. Varying from 30 grams/liter for seawater and ranging from 0.005 to 1500 milligrams/liter for fresh water. These water contaminants cause erosion and corrosion for boilers and yet other issues. This is when water treatment is considered for boiler make up water in order to bring out a certain standard and quality. Purpose is to make boiler water safe to be used in generation of steam in steam generators and boilers.
Every boiler has a design that requires a certain level of impurities. And this level cannot be exceeded in the water being used. It is more like a tolerance that is limited and if exceeded it can cause serious deterioration of the boiler. This is why boiler water with high amounts of impurities has to be pretreated and contaminants has to completely removed before being transformed into steam to improve quality.
Mechanism of a fire tube boiler
Both quantity of nature of impurities in the boiler water are considerable. For instance hardness, iron and silica are of high concern than sodium salt. Flow rate and design of the boiler are highly considered factors in treatment of feed boiler water. Also of these factors; pressure, heat transfer rate, etc. A low pressure fire tube boiler can tolerate high level of hardness with the use of a certain treatment. Contaminants must be completely be removed in case of modern boilers that use high pressure.
BQUA is proudly capable of supplying you with the necessary and suitable equipment in order to treat your boiler feed water prior to entering the equipment. This to make sure no scaling or fouling would occur inside of the boiler and guarantee a long service life without any problems. Please contact our technical sales engineers for more information.
Read more about the boiler water characteristics and feed make-up water properties
