“Boiler Feedwater Treatment” Thursday, December 18, 2014, at 10 a.m. CST

Water sourcing issues, increased pressures for energy efficiency, and advanced boiler designs make management and treatment of boiler feedwater even more important for today’s power plant operators. With increasing Federal and State regulations limiting access to surface and ground water, minimizing water usage becomes an important factor in the selection of water treatment methods.  Optimum treatment will help prevent chemical and flow corrosion in boiler water, steam and condensate systems and elimination of scale.  Prevention of corrosion and scale, in turn, helps to ensure maximum life of boilers, steam turbines, condensers, and pumps, reduces maintenance expenses and allows optimal thermal performance providing greater efficiency.

There are a wide variety of water treatment systems available, but which system is most economical for a specific plant considering energy requirements, chemical costs and performance. This decision is partially dictated by the minerals in and chemical and physical composition of the raw water.  In general, raw water from lakes, rivers or wells is treated by aeration, coagulation, filtration and softening all well established processes.  However, shortages of natural raw water from the traditional sources, the “greening “ of power plants and increasing stringent regulations on disposal of water into surface waters or even holding ponds are now forcing plants to consider reusing their process water or even using treated wastewater from municipal sources.  This adds a new dimension to the problem of properly treating water before adding it as make-up water in the boiler feed systems. Process and wastewater contain even more contaminants and many at higher concentrations than typical natural water. 

Panelists will  discuss the latest technologies available or under development to treat boiler feedwater from natural, process and waste sources with emphasis on chemical usage, water usage, and typical water quality that can be achieved using these technologies.  They will discuss how to reduce the consumption of chemicals and water while achieving better water quality and lower operating costs and present the economics of various treatment technologies focusing on energy use, chemical requirements, capital costs, use of process or wastewater and operation and maintenance costs and issues.

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