Hydroflow S45 provides scale protection for steam boilers

(11/01/2008)

Jordan Valley Food Company is a food processing factory based in Amman, Jordan preparing and packing broad beans, chickpeas and kidney beans. The factory was experiencing severe scale build up and corrosion problems on the inside of the steam boiler, due to the factory being based in a hard water area. Scale in steam boilers has been a perennial problem that until now has not been able to be solved by physical water conditioners.

The management decided to run a three month trial with a water conditioning unit that can actually provide protection for steam boilers. Hydropath’s Hydroflow S45 was easily installed on the water inlet pipe entering the steam boiler, without the need for incision or downtime. Results were recorded prior to the unit being fitted, and following the 12 week trial to allow comparison. Before the installation, the pipes were covered in thick brown scale and what was described as ‘a huge amount of rust and corrosion.

The ‘S’ range is specifically designed for high pressure steam boilers in a range of applications, and is adaptable to cover a range of boiler systems. The patented Hydroflow system is a physical water treatment system that prevents the build up of all limescale deposits, including calcium carbonate without the use of chemicals. Hydroflow works by emitting randomly-varying electric fields throughout the system. This enhances the precipitation of the bicarbonates from solution to suspension by introducing clusters of ions to act as seed for suspended crystallisation.

The resulting suspension therefore does not adhere to pipe work or internal surfaces, but is merely 'washed away' with the flow and during blow down. No other physical water treatment system operates in the same way as Hydroflow as it treats the whole system and dissolve existing scale in the system.

Following the installation of the Hydroflow S45, the depth of the existing scale was dramatically reduced, and the surface of the pipes was described as ‘very smooth’. Improvements were also noted in terms of reduced cleaning and maintenance time, and decreased operating costs due to less energy wasted heating up limescale. The S45 unit also performed well when the hard feed water pipe was used. It was concluded that the 3-month trial was successful at the factory, and the Hydroflow system will be continued to be used at the site.

The Hydroflow ‘S’ range is adaptable to cover a range of all steam boilers, and a variety of pipe sizes from 45mm to 130mm. Units can also be customised to fit larger sizes.

Related categories:  Boilers - Industrial   Industrial applications   Water treatment 

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