Better Boiler Water. Lower Energy Consumption. Longer Equipment Life.
Industrial boilers are energy-intensive assets, and the quality of the water entering them has a direct impact on operating efficiency, reliability and running cost.
Poor-quality boiler feedwater can increase scale formation, chemical consumption, blowdown rates and fuel demand while accelerating corrosion and reducing the operating life of the boiler.
Hydra-Clear designs and manufactures reverse osmosis water treatment systems specifically for industrial applications, producing consistently low-conductivity water for boiler make-up and feedwater applications.
By reducing the concentration of dissolved salts before they enter the boiler, we can help improve steam generation efficiency, reduce unnecessary water and energy losses and protect one of the most important utilities on your site.
Why Boiler Feedwater Quality Matters
When water is converted into steam, dissolved minerals do not evaporate with it.
They remain behind in the boiler water and become increasingly concentrated.
Calcium, magnesium, silica, alkalinity and other dissolved solids can contribute to scale, deposits, corrosion and poor heat transfer if they are not correctly controlled.
The result can be:
* Increased boiler blowdown
* Higher fuel consumption
* Scale formation on heat-transfer surfaces
* Increased boiler-water chemical consumption
* Greater make-up water demand
* Increased maintenance requirements
* Reduced boiler efficiency
* Premature component failure
Correct treatment of the make-up water tackles many of these problems before the water ever reaches the boiler.
Reverse Osmosis for Boiler Feedwater
Reverse osmosis uses high-pressure membrane separation to remove a very high proportion of dissolved salts from incoming water.
Unlike simple filtration, which primarily removes suspended solids, reverse osmosis targets the dissolved ionic contamination responsible for conductivity, hardness and increasing boiler-water TDS.
The result is a significantly lower mineral load entering the steam system.
For many industrial boiler applications, RO therefore provides an effective way of reducing the amount of unwanted material that must subsequently be managed through chemical treatment and boiler blowdown.
Reduce Boiler Blowdown
This is where RO treatment can produce a significant operational benefit.
Boiler blowdown is required to control the concentration of dissolved solids inside the boiler.
Every litre of hot boiler water discharged through blowdown represents:
Water that has been treated.
Water that has been chemically conditioned.
And water that has already been heated.
All of that energy and treatment cost is lost when the water goes to drain.
By significantly reducing the dissolved solids entering the boiler, reverse osmosis can allow the boiler to operate at higher cycles of concentration and, where the overall boiler-water chemistry permits, reduce the volume of blowdown required.
Less blowdown can mean:
* Lower make-up water consumption
* Reduced wastewater discharge
* Lower boiler chemical consumption
* Reduced heat loss
* Lower fuel demand
The exact saving depends on the existing water quality, boiler pressure, steam demand, condensate return and current blowdown regime.
Hydra-Clear can assess these parameters and calculate the potential saving for your site.
Protect Heat Transfer Efficiency
Scale is an effective thermal insulator.
Unfortunately, that is exactly what you don't want between a boiler flame and the water you are trying to heat.
Even relatively thin mineral deposits on boiler heat-transfer surfaces can reduce heat-transfer efficiency, forcing the boiler to consume more fuel to achieve the same steam output.
Severe deposition can also increase local metal temperatures and place unnecessary thermal stress on boiler components.
Correctly treated feedwater helps minimise the conditions that allow scale and deposits to form, helping maintain clean heat-transfer surfaces and efficient boiler operation.
Protect Your Boiler
An industrial boiler represents a significant capital investment.
Water treatment should protect it accordingly.
RO treatment can substantially reduce hardness, alkalinity, silica and dissolved salts entering the boiler system, reducing the burden on downstream chemical treatment and helping maintain controlled boiler-water chemistry.
Correct boiler-water treatment can help reduce the risk of:
* Scale formation
* Under-deposit corrosion
* Pitting
* Fouling
* Reduced heat transfer
* Tube damage
* Unplanned shutdowns
Reverse osmosis is not a replacement for a correctly managed boiler-water treatment programme, but it can dramatically improve the quality of the water that programme has to manage.
Reduce Water, Chemical and Energy Consumption
The benefit of RO boiler make-up treatment isn't simply producing purer water.
It is reducing what the boiler has to deal with.
Lower incoming TDS can help reduce blowdown.
Lower hardness reduces scale potential.
Lower alkalinity can reduce carbon dioxide loading within the steam and condensate system.
Reduced contaminant loading can decrease chemical demand.
Reduced blowdown means less heated water going to drain.
The combined effect can deliver meaningful reductions in operating costs across the steam system.
Don't Guess. Calculate It.
Every boiler house is different.
The benefit of RO depends on factors including:
* Incoming mains or borehole water analysis
* Boiler operating pressure
* Steam production
* Current make-up water consumption
* Percentage condensate return
* Current boiler-water TDS
* Blowdown rate
* Existing softening or water treatment
* Fuel cost
* Water and wastewater costs
* Chemical consumption
Give Hydra-Clear your current operating information and we can assess the water balance and identify where treatment improvements could reduce operating cost.
Hydra-Clear Boiler Feedwater RO Systems
Hydra-Clear designs and manufactures industrial reverse osmosis systems in the UK for boiler houses, process plants and manufacturing facilities.
Our systems can be engineered around the actual site requirement rather than forcing the application around a standard packaged RO.
Depending on the application, a complete boiler make-up water treatment system can incorporate:
* Pre-filtration
* Water softening
* Reverse osmosis
* Antiscalant or chemical dosing
* RO permeate storage
* Treated-water transfer pumps
* Duty/standby configurations
* Conductivity monitoring
* Flow, pressure and level instrumentation
* Siemens PLC and HMI control
* Remote monitoring
* Integration with existing boiler-house controls
For critical applications, redundancy and automatic changeover can also be incorporated into the design.
Existing Boiler House?
We don't only supply new systems.
Hydra-Clear can assess existing boiler-water treatment plants to identify opportunities to improve efficiency, increase reliability and reduce operating cost.
This can include reviewing:
* Existing softener performance
* RO performance and membrane condition
* Boiler make-up demand
* Conductivity and TDS
* Blowdown rates
* Condensate recovery
* Water-treatment chemical consumption
* Control philosophy
* Existing instrumentation
Sometimes the biggest energy saving isn't replacing the boiler.
It's improving the water treatment feeding it.
Talk to a Water Treatment Engineer
If you want to understand whether reverse osmosis could reduce the operating cost of your boiler plant, speak directly to Hydra-Clear.
We can review your incoming water quality, steam demand and existing treatment system and help determine the most appropriate treatment philosophy for your application.
Call 0800 999 6770 or contact Hydra-Clear to discuss your boiler feedwater requirements.