A demineralized water treatment system removes impurities from feedwater entering a power station’s boiler, heading off scaling, corrosion, and other issues that can harm equipment and interrupt power delivery.
A power station’s primary objective is to generate power reliably and profitably. This makes it essential for power providers to invest in a robust, modern, and well-maintained demineralized water system to help make sure that the facility’s boiler, turbine, and condenser are operating well.
The proactive outlay of $3-6M to install a redundant and well-specified demineralized water system can serve to protect not only tens of millions of dollars of capital equipment, but will also help safeguard the power station’s capability to reliably generate electricity.
Raw feedwater coming in to a power station contains suspended and dissolved impurities that, if left untreated, begin to concentrate and collect in the power station’s boiler equipment to the point of causing scaling, corrosion, or other issues. A well-designed demineralized water system mitigates these outcomes by removing impurities before the feedwater reaches the boiler. Some of the issues associated with inadequately treated boiler feedwater are reflected in the table below:
Boiler Feedwater
A demineralized water system consists of several unit-treatment processes to filter suspended solids and remove dissolved salts from feedwater prior to steam generation. Traditionally, ion exchange (IX) vessels are used to systematically remove cations (calcium, magnesium, sodium, etc.), then anions (chloride, sulfates, bicarbonate, and even silica). Depending on specific site conditions, some other facilities may opt to utilize reverse osmosis (RO) systems to pressurize the filtered water and force the water across a semi-permeable membrane sized to let only water molecules pass through while rejecting suspended salts. Power providers require high pressure, high temperature steam for boiler operations, so a higher quality water is required. Further polishing of demineralized water from traditional IX vessels and RO systems can be achieved with a polishing mixed bed (ion exchange) or electro-deionization technology.
A properly demineralized water system heads off scaling, corrosion, and other effects of inadequately treated feedwater before these issues become severe enough to significantly reduce performance and allows for more efficient boiler operations by reducing the frequency of system blowdowns and dosing of chemical additives. All of these attributes contribute to maintaining reliable, cost-effective power delivery for consumers and greatly enhancing equipment life and operation for power providers.
Contact Arica DiTullio, PE at 412.399.5455 and find out more about GAI’s water treatment and management services—message GAI online and start the conversation about how our multidiscipline professionals can meet your unique project needs.
Arica DiTullio, PE specializes in civil and environmental engineering with experience in managing multidisciplinary projects in collaboration with civil, structural, electrical, mechanical and process engineers. Her expertise spans wastewater, water quality analysis, hydrologic and hydraulic computations, site grading, erosion and sediment control, and stormwater management with a comprehensive understanding of federal, state, and local permitting and regulations.
