Abstract
Scale formation and corrosion phenomena are major technical problems at Basra Refinery/ South Refineries Company (SRC). These technical problems are concentrated in cooling towers which are used to supply cooling water to the processing units. The Scales and corrosion products precipitate inside cooling units, heat exchangers and pipeline networks affecting negatively efficiency of refinery’s equipment. In this work, a real plant data was collected from four cooling towers which is supplied the coolant to the crude distillation units of the refinery and also from the raw water supplier. The collected data was fitted by Langelier model to predict the tendency of cooling water for scale forming and activation of corrosion. The obtained result shows that the cooling water has a tendency to form scale (CaCO3 Precipitation) at cooling tower units. Also the feed water has the same tendency for scale forming.After analyzing the LSI (Langelier Saturation Index) results, the research team recommends the particular company to overcome this problem by installing a Reverse Osmosis (RO) plant for treating raw water to decrease the concentrations of total dissolved solids (TDS) which result scale and corrosion in the parts of cooling tower as an option to solve the problem.
Highlights
Cooling towers are heat exchangers used to dissipate large heat loads to the atmosphere [1]
At present, (BR) Cooling tower efficiency enhanced by the addition of certain water treatment chemicals to increase the solubility of calcium salts, mitigate corrosion, minimize fouling and control the growth of microbiological organisms like algae, bacteria, mold and fungi, as shown in Fig. Makeup water feeds to (BR) cooling units submits to some treatments to be improved quality, but it is not enough to make the water safe to be used in cooling towers
The Cooling tower efficiency of Basrah refinery (BR) enhanced by the addition of certain makeup water treatment chemicals to increase the solubility of calcium salts, mitigate corrosion, minimize fouling and controls the growth of microbiological organisms like algae, bacteria, mold and fungi, as shown in Fig. addition of these improvers has not effect on quality of water where fouling and scales are causing problems in heat exchangers and pipelines, corrosion products is found in the circulating water as well as finding of microbiological growth
Summary
Cooling towers are heat exchangers used to dissipate large heat loads to the atmosphere [1]. To control corrosion and scale, maintain the water chemistry of the recirculating water within the parameters listed in Table (1) [4]. Bleed/blow-down, the continuous flow of a small portion of the recirculating water to a drain is used to control the concentration of dissolved solids. On rare occasions, this may be adequate to control scale and corrosion. In cases where bleed/ blow-down alone is being employed for corrosion and scale control without chemical treatment your water treatment specialist may recommend more conservative limits than those shown in Table (2) [5]. At present, (BR) Cooling tower efficiency enhanced by the addition of certain water treatment chemicals to increase the solubility of calcium salts, mitigate corrosion, minimize fouling and control the growth of microbiological organisms like algae, bacteria, mold and fungi, as shown in Fig. Makeup water feeds to (BR) cooling units submits to some treatments to be improved quality, but it is not enough to make the water safe to be used in cooling towers
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