The heat exchanger gets clogged frequently; please advise
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This post was last edited by sunjl1981 on 2013-1-6 at 23:37. The brine heat exchangers in our facility are made of titanium; the diameter of the heat exchange tubes is approximately DN25. After some time, certain holes in these tubes get blocked. Acid cleaning doesn’t work, and it’s necessary to use round steel bars and hammers to clear them. This process needs to be repeated from time to time, which is extremely troublesome. It also tends to cause the brine flow rate to fall short of the required level for purification. I wonder if other facilities encounter this problem as well ? How to handle it? ? ， ， -
We use plate heat exchangers, and they have never been clogged. Based on your description, it seems that salt crystals have formed; what is the concentration here?
I have never encountered the situation described by the original poster; I don’t know what kind of salt they used, nor what the debris that was removed actually was
Check the concentration of the saline solution. If it gets clogged frequently, disassemble it to see if there are any mechanical impurities left over from the cleaning process. Our unit also got clogged at one point; when we took it apart, we found stones, broken pipe ends, and various other debris, as well as some sediment. It’s recommended to take it apart for inspection. We use a plate-type design as well.
We use plate heat exchangers; there should be a filter before the pump that feeds into the heat exchanger, right?
We use plate heat exchangers. OP, is the blockage in your heat exchanger caused by the circulating water level or by the brine level? ? If there’s a blockage in the circulating water, conduct tests to check the levels of calcium and magnesium in the water. If it’s a salt-related blockage, analyze the structural components to identify the cause. Here, problems usually occur with the circulating water system
We use shell-and-tube heat exchangers as well, and we’ve never seen any blockages； If the saltwater concentration and the calcium and magnesium levels in the brine are not very high, the heat exchanger should not get clogged ； We plan to use a panel-type design; I’m not sure if it will work well. Please give me your advice!
I suggest taking a sample of the coarse saltwater to test for sulfate levels to see how much is present. The substance causing blockage in the tubes could be calcium sulfate; in our plant, high levels of sulfate in the saltwater led to crystallization on the inner walls of the DN250 tubes, resulting in those tubes eventually having a diameter of only DN200.
Is it because the saltwater concentration is too high and the temperature of the saltwater is too low, causing the saltwater to crystallize?
This post was last edited by Yinozhang on 2010-7-22 at 13:27. It’s worth checking whether there has been a long period of no flow of saline, or whether the system wasn’t cleaned after a change in configuration; when the saline cools down, it crystallizes inside the heat exchange tubes. As long as there is sufficient fluidity, that is, if the system keeps being in use, there shouldn’t be any problems with blockages.
It might be related to the concentration and the composition of the salts; we haven’t encountered such issues in our factory’s production