Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Condensate Polisher Ready for Shipment to Chemical Plant in Louisiana


Res-Kem will be shipping a condensate polisher to a chemical plant in Louisiana in a two days.  This system will be used to treat condensate to save water treatment chemical costs, identify process equipment leaks and will likely improve product quality of the chemicals they produce.

What is the problem?
The chemical plant uses steam in heat exchangers and jacketed process reactors.  The steam condensate returns at about 20 ppm hardness 24/7.  Recycling this high hardness condensate back into the boiler makeup water reduces the number of cycles of concentration possible and increases water treatment chemical usage.  Given the number of heat exchangers and reactors, it has been difficult to determine where the leaks are coming from.

What is the system solution?
Working with a Res-Kem subject matter expert, a condensate polisher was selected to reduce the hardness in the steam condensate prior to being returned to the boiler makeup.  A Hach SP-510 hardness analyzer installed on the treated water side of the CP will be used to determine when the polisher needs to be regenerated every two minutes process.  A Hach APA-6000 will be used to measure the incoming value of the hardness during operation.  By measuring and recording the water hardness and which process is operating, the plant engineers should be able to correlate which heat exchanger and/or reactor has the leak.    
 
Bray Valves and a Sample Cooler attached to a Single Condensate Polisher
Single Condensate Polisher with Bray Valves and Sample Cooler
System Operating Parameters:
The new, single tank condensate polisher will treat up to 140 gpm and since the system uses a highly crosslinked cation exchange resin, the system will operate at a maximum of 185 F.  As stated above, the Hach SP510 analyzer will take samples of the treated condensate every two minutes.  When the treated condensate reaches 10 ppm a signal will be sent to the DCS in the control room.  Depending upon the production schedule, regeneration of the condensate polisher start.

System Features:
Res-Kem has a customizable standard design for our condensate polishers from 20 to 66" in diameter with single to multiple tanks in parallel.  All wetted materials of the polisher are manufactured in 304L and 316L stainless steel.  The single mineral tank is an ASME-code vessel with a design pressure of 100 psig and test pressure of 130 psig.  The valves are Bray butterfly valves with 316L wetted parts.  Since we have a customizable standard design we easily accommodated the customer's company-wide standard of HYTORX actuators with position indicators.   
A Bray valve with a hytorx-131 actuator and a flow control on the condensate polisher
Bray Valve with HYTORX-131 Actuator and Flow Control on Condensate Polisher
Optional Added Features:
  • Sample cooler-Required to operate the Hach hardness analyzers.  The maximum operating temperature for these instruments is F.  Also, the sample cooler insure accurate measurement of pH in the condensate.  Without a sample cooler, the pH will be inaccurately high.
  • Hach SP510 Go/No Go hardness analyzer-This unit has multiple ranges which need to be selected when ordering
  • Hach APA 6000
  • Emerson HYTORX actuators
For Additional Help:

1 comment:

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