Feed systems hardness

The quahty of feed water required depends on boiler operating pressure, design, heat transfer rates, and steam use. Most boiler systems have sodium zeohte softened or demineralized makeup water. Feed-water hardness usually ranges from 0.01 to 2.0 ppm, but even water of this purity does not provide deposit-free operation. Therefore, good internal boiler water treatment programs are necessary. 

A CEDI system can produce up to 18-megohm-cm water at 90-95% water recovery. Recovery by the CEDI system is a function of the total hardness in the feed water to the system. In general, 95% recovery can be realized at a feed water hardness of less than 0.1 ppm as calcium carbonate.16 This is typically attained if the pretreatment to the CEDI consists of either 2-pass RO or sodium-cycle softening followed by RO. Recovery that is achievable is a function of the feed... 

Electrodeionization S em Material Balance The percentage of the feed water that becomes product is referred to as the recovery of the system. The recent EDI units are typically operated at very high system recovery. With the addition of a concentrate recycle system, the new generation EDI modules are routinely operated at 80-95% feed water recovery in post-RO application. Recovery rate is decided by EDI feed water hardness. Recovery for the EDI units can be expressed as follows ... 

Yet a further problem concerning excessive water loss is the increased risk of carbonate scale deposition. It is the usual case to propose that, because heating systems are closed loops with minimal losses, many operators believe that they do not require sophisticated chemical treatment programs, injection-feed methods, or monitoring and control processes. To further this view comes the added philosophy that, irrespective of hardness content, the MU water supply to these systems does not require any pretreatment such as ion-exchange softening. 

The hot-feed rubber extruder is usually characterised by a relatively large screw depth and a relatively short L/D ratio of the barrel of 3 to 8 1 with the greatest number of machines having a ratio of 4 1. The barrel comprises usually a cast iron outer with either a traditional replaceable nitride liner, or, in the case of one manufacturer, of a single piece construction with an integral cast liner which has a surface hardness of Rockwell C60-62 and a hardness depth of 1.5 mm. The functional life for the bimetallic barrels is longer than for conventional nitride liner systems. 

In addition to the basic control loops, all processes have instrumentation that (1) sounds alarms to alert the operator to any abnormal or unsafe condition, and (2) shuts down the process if unsafe conditions are detected or equipment fails. For example, if a compressor motor overloads and the electrical control system on the motor shuts down the motor, the rest of the process will usually have to be shut down immediately. This type of instrumentation is called an interlock. It either shuts a control valve completely or drives the control valve wide open. Other examples of conditions that can interlock a process down include failure of a feed or reflux pump, detection of high pressure or temperature in a vessel, and indication of high or low liquid level in a tank or column base. Interlocks are usually achieved by pressure, mechanical, or electrical switches. They can be included in the computer software in a computer control system, but they are usually hard-wired for reliability and redundancy. 

The relationship between pressure ratio and selectivity is important because of the practical limitation to the pressure ratio achievable in gas separation systems. Compressing the feed stream to very high pressure or drawing a very hard vacuum on the permeate side of the membrane to achieve large pressure ratios both require large amounts of energy and expensive pumps. As a result, typical practical pressure ratios are in the range 5-20. 

The calculations shown in Figure 11.18 assume that a hard vacuum is maintained on the permeate side of the membrane. The operating and capital costs of vacuum and compression equipment prohibit these conditions in practical systems. More realistically, a carrier facilitated process would be operated either with a compressed gas feed and atmospheric pressure on the permeate side of the membrane, or with an ambient-pressure feed gas and a vacuum of about 0.1 atm on the permeate side. By substitution of specific values for the feed and permeate pressures into Equation (11.19), the optimum values of the equilibrium constant can be calculated. A plot illustrating this calculation for compression and vacuum operation is shown in Figure 11.19. 

Sodium softening is used to remove soluble hardness from water, including calcium, magnesium, barium, and strontium. As discussed in Chapter 8.1.6, sodium softeners are commonly used to pre-treat RO feed water to reduce the potential for scaling the membrane with hardness scales. In the next two sections, the placement of the sodium softener, either before or after the RO system, as well as the use of sodium softeners versus antisealants are discussed. 

Despite efforts to comply with the limitations on feed water quality, CEDI systems can still foul and scale with microbes, organics, iron and manganese, and calcium- and silica-based scales. This usually occurs due to upsets in the pretreatment system or a deficiency in the system design that result in excursion in feed water quality to the CEDI system. Organics, metals, hardness, and silica problems are usually found on the membranes and sometimes on the resin (as is the case with organics). Biofouling is typically found on the... 

To prevent these failures, constant monitoring of the pretreatment system is necessary. Alarms should be installed on critical systems, such as the ORP associated with the sodium bisulfite feed. Particle monitors could be used to detect channeling or carry over through filters. Hardness analyzers with alarm should be installed on the effluent from softeners. 

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