Total silica reduction for high pressure boiler feed applications

Wipro Water’s vast experience in designing robust boiler feed water generation systems helps power plants in the reduction of silica scale in the turbine. Increased availability improves reliability and reduces operation expenditure.

Most water contains silica in its soluble or suspended form. Although coagulation and filtration (physico-chemical pre-treatment) can remove the suspended matter from water, these processes have little effect in reducing the content of soluble silica. At pressures as low as 400 pounds per square in gauge (psig), silica vaporizes. This causes scaling in turbines that is extremely difficult to remove. The thermal conductivity of silica is poor, and failures in the turbine may occur even with at very thin silica scale. Removal of silica plays an important role in boiler feed applications.

Wipro Water also provides:

• A proper mix of pre-treatment, ultrafiltration with ion exchange or reverse osmosis as an effective solution for total silica reduction.
• Electrodeionization (EDI) to achieve low levels of silica - typically over 98% of silica in a feed water.
• Desilication to remove silica from water with low TDS but moderate to high levels of silica.