Contents

Introduction.

In 1999 Illovo Sugar Limited, Gledhow Mill changed water treatment of their boilers from the inorganic, polymeric conventional treatment regime to the patented, performance specialty program HELAMIN? .

Utilizing the HELAMIN? product technology and people expertise, the Technical Director, Paul Hattingh claimed the benefits of this unequalled treatment program would achieve many un-matched performance characteristics for both the mill and the Illovo Group.

In the last HELAMIN? presentation to the Illovo Group, prior to commencement of the “water treatment trial” great effort and attention was focused at changing the Illovo head office and individual mill management perception/s to what constitutes effective, competitive water treatment. Our performance and cost saving claims, were as anticipated, often met with everyone's mutual and total disbelief – comments and thoughts like “this seems to good to be true” and “this sounds like a fantastic sales pitch” and “I find it hard to believe this form of treatment can achieve what it is claimed to” were made. Knowing the technology and confident in our people and product capabilities, the following claims were made:-

Benefits using the HELAMIN® performance boiler water treatment

HELAMIN? is a single pack, multi-component, ready to use water treatment program that will offer single point dosage thus totally eliminating operator involvement with control, testing, mixing and chemical preparation.

Corrosion rates in all water / steam sections would be reduced by a minimum of 90%.

The unique characteristics of the HELAMIN? cleaning program would slowly and progressively remove old scale and heat transfer oxide foulants and thus ensure a continuous improvement in heat transfer efficiency – a minimum of 5 % improvement was expected.

The unique non-TDS inducing chemistry of the HELAMIN? program would reduce boiler blowdown by a minimum of 30 % of total steam produced.

Pre- HELAMIN® trial expectations + summary achievements to date.

Corrosion of steam, superheater, turbine, boiler feed and condensate circuits would be reduced by 90 %

Boiler blowdown would be reduced by approx. 50 %

A slow and progressive cleaning of boiler magnetite deposits – increasing boiler efficiencies of approx. 5 %

Corrosion in all steam and accept condensates has been reduced by 200 x

Boiler blowdown has been reduced 4 fold.

Cleaning of boiler waterside has been visually confirmed. Recent utility audit information shows a net increase in steam to coal ratio (excluding all plant modifications) of minimum 10 %

History of water treatment at Gledhow Mill.

dispersant polymer, caustic soda and neutralizing amines, the latter discontinued after a short Conventional water treatment products suitable and able to service the sugar industry are limited to typical conventional food grade approved programs, thus only a few alternatives exist for the engineer to choose from. These typically include:-

  • Sulphite oxygen scavenger based treatments
  • Phosphates for boiler hardness control and pH buffering / alkalization of the boilers.
  • Organic polymers and dispersants for transport of corrosion products
  • Neutralizing amines for pH control and metal passivation in steam and condensate
  • HELAMIN?- and its unique unequalled performance characteristics

Up to 1995 – phosphate, Sulphite and caustic soda was used

1996 – 1998 – Drew Sulphite, organic time due to acid degradation products and the resultant increased corrosion of the condensate.

1999 – to date the HELAMIN? program for passivation and protection of plant, boiler online cleaning and pH control / alkalization in all steam water sections.

Graphical representation steam to coal ratio 1994 – 2000 (Summary)

Coal cost contribution per ton steam 1994 – 2000 (Summary)

Comparative costs to produce steam between the available treatment programs.

Focusing attention on main variables costs effecting steam production.

Boiler blowdown 1994 – 2000 + coal lost due to blowdown 1994 – 2000.

Trend of improved metal passivation 1999 – 2000.

Effect of magnetite oxide deposits on increased fuel usage.

Boiler efficiency analysis 1999 - 2000

Results & cost comparisons between the different available treatment programs.

Collation of historical data.

The HELAMIN? technical team (with assistance from Chris Strathern and Ben Laing), were able to recover and collate data from the boiler control room log books. A special thanks to Marcus Baltes our Technical Manager for his effort over the last few months in collection, collation and representation of this very valuable data in an easy to read, user-friendly Microsoft Excel format. The data is also conveniently, graphically shown with statistical trend lines, comparative calculation between the results, costs and treatment actions of the ONLY 3 different types of water treatment programs available to Illovo.

As expected – the data collected from 1994 to 2000 inclusive now adds confirmation to our claims, now un-refutable is their validity, more importantly the notable difference from both a treatment action as well as from a cost effective competitive standpoint with use of the HELAMIN? water treatment program becomes alarmingly apparent. Since the predominant steaming unit at Gledhow mill is the coal fired boiler No. 1, the information and representation of the same has been localized to this unit.

The 2000 crop season intermediate information utility audit shows the following:-

Although the steam to coal ratio for boiler No. 1 is lower than the average for the 1999 season, the trend shows that there is a continuous improvement in the boiler heat transfer surface, resulting from the HELAMIN® cleaning of old oxide deposits from the boiler tubes. Due to the bumpy start in the beginning of the season with many unscheduled plant stops, boiler efficiencies have been low until July 2000, after which boiler operation has stabilized. The sudden drops in the steam to coal ratios seen from the graphical representations is due to plant start-ups where coal is used but little if no steam benefit for production is enjoyed. The trend line suggests that the average steam to coal ratio (boiler efficiency) will be higher than that achieved in the 1999 crop season. Current 2000 steam to coal ratios are calculated at 7,8 and increasing at approx. 12 %. The coal fiber ratio is a clear indication of how stable the plant is operated. Frequent plant stops result in excess coal requirements to start the boilers. Boiler no. 1 is operated solely on coal whereas boilers 2 & 3 are operated mainly on begasse with some coal, and boilers 4 & 5 are fired totally on begasse. The graphical representation of the coal / fibre ratio (seen in Excel data) shows that no profit was made in the fist 4 months of the 2000 crop season, due to many unscheduled plant stops. Since July 2000, plant operation has stabilized and the coal / fibre ratio showing profits. The average coal / fibre ratio to date is almost at break even – 57. If the plant continues to operate under the current stable conditions the coal / fibre ratio will show healthy profits at the end of the season.

HELAMIN® performance benefits and confirmed savings.

The value added benefits achieved and shown above exclude the significant cost reductions associated with ensuring plant longevity, continuous production and termination of tube failures and maintenance due to corrosion, deposition and their proportional effects.

Conclusion & Acknowledgements.

Water treatment of boilers represents approx.0,3 – 0,4 % of the total cost to produce steam. It is of sound economic sense to rather focus ones attention on products and services that may achieve the following:

  • Passivation of plant
  • Protection of heat transfer from scale and or deposits.
  • Ways to focus attention on those variable costs that make up the other > 99 % of the total costs to produce steam and the potential of savings / reductions that may be achieved in these areas- thus making the global competitiveness important, focusing attention to means of saving on fuel, equipment maintenance etc – the water treatment cost/s thus assume almost insignificant importance.
  • It should however be noted, as confirmed in the attached data and graphical trend representations, poor water treatment and conventional chemical product limitations – appear “cheap offering low monthly treatment costs” but carry with them huge effect/s on increasing the total cost of steam production.

It is imperative that we be afforded the opportunity of involving ourselves with participative management and optimization of any capital plant that is utilizing the HELAMIN? technology.

In my capacity as Technical Director of HELAMIN? Water Treatment I pledge to guarantee any Illovo Mill that decides to join and benefit from this our true performance water treatment technology, the same levels of professional service, installation optimization and focused passivation of plant with notable reductions in variable costs.

The extent and caliber of our professional management and optimization of boilers and utilities and our unequalled product performance is enjoyed by all our clients, South African Breweries, Amplats, Gencor, Nampak, Goodyear, Aspex Pulp and Paper and Huletts Felixton (vapour treatment) - to mention just a few.

As a team – we remain committed to meeting and exceeding your water treatment expectations.

Paul Hattingh
Technical Director
Private e-mail paulhwt@helamin.co.za and paulhwt@mweb.co.za

Acknowledgements

A special thanks to Ekhard Lucht, Chris and Ben for their tireless support, hospitality and all of your mutual eagerness to benefit from the HELAMIN? water treatment program. Thank you all for affording us the opportunity of capturing and collating this information and for presenting the same to you..

A special thanks also to Marcus for his time and patience with the seeking of information, computer capture of the same and presentation of all contributing and historical data in a user-friendly format.

Totalized data and supporting graphical trends for the period 1994 to 2000 – please click here.