Boiler Cleaning Technologies

Sootblowers are used to clean boiler ash and slag deposits.

The cleaning media used in sootblowers may be saturated
steam, superheated steam, compressed air or water. In most
cases, superheated steam has become the preferred cleaning
media because it has a greater cleaning potential due partially
to teh higher sonic velocity through the nozzles and it has less
erosion than saturated steam. On larger boilers, compressed
air is oftern used as the cleaning media. Water may also be
used as a cleaning medium either alone or in combination with
steam or air. For certain high temperature ranges in which the
plastic is plastic or where the deposit strongly sinters to the tube
(when burning some Western low sulfur coals), neither air nor
steam is effective. In these cases, water is required as a
cleaning medium to remove the deposit.
Boiler cleaning technology has developed significantly in the
last several decades, especially in the furnace cleaning area.
The traditional method of furnace cleaning is the retractable wall
blower, a concept which exists in its present form from the
1940s. This device is inserted into the furnace wall through an
opening. The blower tube rotates while a jet of steam or air is
sprayed on the furnace wall to clean off deposits. A blower
typically can cover an eight to ten foot diameter area, or about
fifty square feet.Wall blowers are often not adequate for clean
boilers that are burning PRB, lignite, or other coals that form
furnace deposits as tests show . Reasons for this are
suggested to be the impact angle of the cleaning media upon
the slag as well as the relatively low mass flow of the cleaning
media.
Water Lances
Hence water lances were developed to clean larger areas and
use a water jet as the cleaning medium. This device is a
modification of the retractable sootblower. It sprays a jet of
water back on to the wall it is mounted on in a spiral pattern as it
is inserted into the furnace.
Water lances cover about a 20-foot diameter area and clean a
spiral shaped area where the water impingement area
traverses the tube water wall. Thus, a 500 Mw size boiler may
be outfitted with 40 or more in an attempt to keep the furnace
clean. They have small nozzle area (typically 2/16 with 1/32
satellite nozzles diameter) and require high purity water. Lances
can be bent if they are hit by falling slag while inserted into the
boiler.
While generally effective on most fuels, water lances have been
limited by several factors:

Their relatively high installed cost per unit area cleaned

(typically in the range of $100 per square foot). As a result
of this, their implementation is usually piecemeal, only
addressing a small proportion of the ideal cleaned area.
Power plant operators had to compromise on less
devices than would be ideal, and achieve less than
optimal cleaning capacity, limiting unit performance.
The low incident angle of impact of the water on the wall,
, dictates the use of high intensity water jets, as noted by
the use of very small nozzles. This high velocity is required
in order to compensate for the shallow impact angle of the
water on the wall. Typically back rake angles of 15 or 20
degrees are used on water lances, meaning that the
water impacts the boiler wall at 75 of 70 degrees,
respectively, off a normal or direct wall impingement.
This low angle on incidence is responsible for multiple
cooling impacts per cleaning cycle.
The relatively small nozzles used on them (1/8 to 3/16)
are prone to blockage. The lance then fails, melting or
deforming in the furnace, due to lack of cooling when
inserted.
Water Cannons
As a major development from water lances originating in the
1980s, water cannons spray a targeted and precisely controlled
jet of water from an opening in the furnace wall to the opposite
wall. Robotic control mechanisms are used to achieve pinpoint
accuracy in positioning and cleaning. See the image below for
an illustration of this process.
In many installations a cannon can clean from the nose arch to
the bottom slope tubes and from one side to the other. Thus 4
cannons, one on each wall, can clean an entire furnace. More
complex geometries, for example wing walls, center division
walls A concentrated water jet, which is produced by a special
nozzle, crosses the boiler inside and impacts on the slagged
wall surface. The cleaning effect is based on the fact that the
impacting water which penetrates the topmost layer and
expands into steam. In this way the slag is broken up and
removed from the surface.
Water cannons offer a number of advantages over conventional
wall blowers and water lances. A selection of the most obvious
are given here:
The large number of wall blowers and/or water lances
requires an extraordinarily high maintenance expense.
The use of steam, air, or high purity water as cleaning
agents results in high operating costs. Water cannons can

use service water with a clear reduction in cost.

The water cannons also allow areas to be cleaned that
cannot be outfitted with wall blowers and water lances.
Division walls, nose arches, and lower slope tubes are
examples of areas routinely cleaned by water cannons.
Dramatic cleaning area coverage: In a typical furnace the
area cleaned can often be more than doubled. This
increase in cleaning has several positive effects:
Reducing furnace exit gas temperature (FEGT) by
increasing the amount of heat absorbed in the
furnace. Hence unit efficiency is improved. Load
can be increased as FEGT reductions permit an
increase in coal flow (given adequate materials and
air handling capacity).
Improving the distribution of heat transfer throughout
the furnace. As water lances and wall blowers have
capability to clean only a small section of the wall,
the heat transfer must be forced through this small
area. By being able to clean a larger area, the
cleaning load for these areas can be reduced and
more evenly distributed over other, previously
uncleaned, areas.
An additional benefit is the reduction in thermal NOx
production. Reductions of 100 F in FEGT are
common and NOx reductions of 10% or more have
been documented.

Slagging and Fouling

Factors Influencing Slagging and Fouling
Boiler Cleaning Technologies
Mechanism of Water Cleaning
Mechanism of Thermal Tube Impact