Cooling water system contaminants

Almost all cooling water system deposits are waterborne. It would be impossible to list each deposit specifically, but general categorization is possible. Deposits are precipitates, transported particulate, biological materials, and a variety of contaminants such as grease, oil, process chemicals, and silt. Associated corrosion is fundamentally related to whether deposits are innately aggressive or simply serve as an occluding medium beneath which concentration cells develop. An American... 

Cooling water system corrosion causes immediate and delayed problems. Difficulties spread from a failure like ripples from a pebble thrown into a pool. A single failure may force an unscheduled outage, redirect worker efforts, contaminate product, compromise safety, increase equipment expense, violate pollution regulations, and decrease productivity. 

See also Chapter 9, Section 4, and the notes on Process Contamination in Section 10.8.28). Techniques for the on-line cleaning of open recirculating cooling water systems are often similar to those for preoperational cleaning in that generally there is a two-stage approach ... 

Liquid flow in open channels is not common in a process plant, because of health and safety considerations, apart from the potential risk of contamination of the liquid itself. Open channels, however, are sometimes to be found in cooling water systems where large volumes of water are involved. Nevertheless, for the sake of completeness a brief treatment of the subject is included in this entry. 

Water. Water mains should be connected to plant fire mains at two or more poiats, so that a sufficient water supply can be deHvered ia case of emergency. The plant loop and its branches should be adequately valved so that a break can be isolated without affecting a principal part of the system. If there is any question of maintaining adequate pressure, suitable booster pumps should be iastaHed. Any connection made to potable water for process water or cooling water must be made ia such a manner that there can be no backflow of possibly contaminated water check valves alone are not sufficient. The municipal supply should faH freely iato a tank from which the water is pumped for process purposes, or commercially available and approved backflow preventers should be used. 

Foulants enter a cooling system with makeup water, airborne contamination, process leaks, and corrosion. Most potential foulants enter with makeup water as particulate matter, such as clay, sdt, and iron oxides. Insoluble aluminum and iron hydroxides enter a system from makeup water pretreatment operations. Some well waters contain high levels of soluble ferrous iron that is later oxidized to ferric iron by dissolved oxygen in the recirculating cooling water. Because it is insoluble, the ferric iron precipitates. The steel corrosion process is also a source of ferrous iron and, consequendy, contributes to fouling. 

Most refinery process units and equipment are manifolded into a collection unit, called the blowdown system. Blowdown systems provide for the safe handling and disposal of liquids and gases that are either automatically vented from the process units through pressure relief valves, or that are manually drawn from units. Recirculated process streams and cooling water streams are often manually purged to prevent the continued buildup of contaminants in the stream. Part or all of the contents of equipment can also be purged to the blowdown system prior to shutdown before normal or emergency shutdowns. 

The purpose of the facilities described in this chapter is to provide for safe handling of various drainage materials and emergency streams, so that they may be safely routed to the sewer, tankage, flare, or other appropriate destination. Drainage systems specified herein ensure that flammable or toxic materials may be disposed of without hazard of fire or injury when equipment is taken out of service. Also described are systems to handle process water drawoffs, cooling water, and other aqueous effluent streams which may be contaminated with hydrocarbons, and which could otherwise create hazardous conditions if they were discharged directly to the sewer. 

In certain processes (such as rubber tire manufacture and plastic injection molding operations), it is common for a valve sequencing system to first provide hot steam followed by cold cooling water and thus for cross-contamination to occur. The result may be the stripping of passivated cooling system surfaces by steam and for the condensate to be infiltrated by cooling water. 

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