Water and energy go hand in hand. It takes energy to pump, treat, heat, and cool water for boiler and cooling systems. Not only can optimizing water usage help minimize energy usage, but managing scale deposits, corrosion, and biofilms also play a role in energy demands.

Boiler and cooling water systems require substantial amounts of energy to run our modern-day world. Proper water management can help reduce and optimize these energy demands. Multiple strategies are available to help meet energy-saving objectives, including optimizing water chemistry, improved pretreatment, preventing scale deposits, reducing water waste, and equipment maintenance.

Water is an ultimate sustainable resource. The hydrologic cycle works to continuously return water to nature for reuse. The challenge is to find enough usable water without overtaxing nature’s ability to replenish the local water supply. 

As a large consumer of fresh water, boiler and cooling systems are obvious targets for water conservation efforts. When properly managed, reducing water usage for these systems can have the added benefit of reducing the total costs of operation. There are multiple strategies to help meet water-saving objectives, including management and control of water chemistry, makeup water pretreatment, use of alternative water sources, and equipment maintenance.

As the global population grows and the demand for water, energy, and other natural resources increase, it is important to responsibly manage and use all our resources wisely. An effective water treatment program helps maximize the life, efficiency, reliability, and safety of boiler, cooling, closed loop, and wastewater systems and minimizes water usage, energy demand, greenhouse gas emissions, and total costs. 

Steam boiler systems are complex with not only the physics of the mechanical side to worry about but the chemistry of the water side as well. There are many problems that can occur that will impact boiler reliability. The mechanisms that can lead to failures in a steam boiler system can often be identified if you know what to look for. Here are five (5) common causes of waterside failures with pictures and descriptions to help you recognize them.

Steam Purity is a measure of all contaminants in steam, with high-purity steam containing only trace amounts of contamination. Maintaining high steam purity is important in many industries, but there are few applications where it is more critical than in healthcare facilities that use plant steam for surgical instrument sterilization and/or operating room humidification. In a hospital, any contaminants in the steam could potentially interfere with proper sterilization as well as be inhaled by hospital patients, staff, and visitors. Understanding how and where to add the water treatment chemicals and the factors that can cause boiler water carryover will help hospitals ensure that high-purity plant steam is consistently produced.