Power Station Boilers

Date: October 2007

Customer: Anon

Location: East of England

Background

An East of England Power Station (PS) has to shut down the boilers once or twice a year for scheduled maintenance (known as outage). During outage the boilers cool down and rust forms on the boiler tubes and walls. Upon restarting rust comes out of the chimneys, resulting in damage to the products of local businesses and environmental issues.

1) The Task

On numerous occasions the PS has had to immediately turn off the boilers upon restart and wait for the wind to change direction in order that no more damage was caused to local businesses due to the rust. This has meant a delay in PS being able to generate power and lost revenue. This has been a problem for the last fourteen years; various solutions have been tried without success. HITEK-nology Solutions Ltd (HSL) was approached to provide a solution.

2) Product Used

VpCI 337

3) The Solution

The internal volume of the boilers is divided into seven levels, four sections per level, with tube banks running through each level. VpCI 337 was sprayed on to the tube banks and walls in each level. In addition VpCI 337 was also sprayed into the top and bottom of the boilers. Three weeks later when the boilers were started no rust came out of the chimneys. This was the first time in fourteen years that PS had achieved this. HSL now carries out this procedure at all outages.