BOILERS DEIONIZATION INSTRUMENTS MONITORING POWER STEAM TROUBLESHOOTING

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Abstract

Many industrial utility operations have no good way to determine the purity of the steam that they are producing until a failure occurs, or they are forced to frequently wash downstream equipment like turbines. Most industrial systems donﾒt have on-line sodium analyzers installed, and when a situation occurs in the plant that indicates that steam purity may be questionable, the desire to run a steam purity study moves very high up on the priority list. Most people do not have much confidence in grab samples simply because they are afraid that the problem could be occurring between samples. They would like to use an on-line analyzer so the steam purity can be continuously tested under various operating conditions. The author has been doing these steam purity studies for nearly 9 years as a contract consultant. We temporarily install a sodium analyzer on a steam line and put the boiler through a series of various operating conditions. The results of the study are then interpreted and a written report is generated. Over the years the author has tested systems with sodium in the steam ranging from <1.0 parts per billion (ppb) to >2.0 parts per million (ppm). However, one common denominator always seems to be present in most industrial plantsﾗthe people working daily in the plant are rather ignorant of proper sampling technique and the effect of poor technique on analytical results. There are many signs of this ignorance. Some of these are represented by following case histories.

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