Regarding the soda separator
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The urea evaporation and decomposition system has high steam consumption. The steam traps on our unit’s evaporation heaters often fail, resulting in significant air leakage. I am considering installing a cyclone-type steam-water separator after the evaporation heater to remove the condensate; the uncondensed steam produced by this separator has a pressure of over 8 kilograms, and it could be used for insulation in high-pressure systems or to preheat ammonia. This is just an idea that hasn’t been tested yet. I would appreciate any advice from those with more experience.
It’s a bit complicated. It is possible to consider removing the steam trap and replacing it with a gravity sedimentation separator (one that does not use cyclones); the gas phase obtained as a result is connected to the steam inlet pipe of the heater (downstream of the inlet control valve), while the liquid phase can be controlled using a level control valve. It is more reliable than a pressure relief valve, and it can handle a wide range of load variations.
The method suggested by the original poster is not a good one. Based on the phenomena described by the poster, there seems to be an issue with the selection of the strainer. For the drain valve of the evaporation heater, an inverted drum type drain valve (such as the Armstrong 880 series) can be used; when selecting it, it is important to choose an appropriate valve nozzle (the operating differential pressure of the drain valve). This not only solves the problem completely, but also has a lower cost compared to that of a separate soda separator; more importantly, it offers high system reliability. We can discuss the issue of selecting steam traps together. chuanhong@sina.com Regarding the suggestions on the second floor, it seems that connecting the vapor outlet of the steam-water separator to the steam inlet of the evaporation heater is also not a viable approach. After the steam enters the evaporation heater and undergoes heat exchange, it loses heat; even though water is separated out through the steam-water separator, its saturation level is lower compared to that of the incoming steam, and the pressure decreases as well. Connecting the two points at this time may result in low heat exchange efficiency of the equipment.