Melrose Chemicals, Ltd. is a Canadian Leader in Chemicals for Water Treatment
We have developed a full line of proprietary formulations for the water side of your operations. Our products include water-side chemicals for cooling and boiler water applications such as corrosion inhibitors, dispersants, scale control agents, biocides, oxygen scavengers, precipitating agents, solubilisers, and neutralising/film forming amines. In addition, we’ve developed a series of chemicals to improve boiler combustion efficiency, to prevent high-temperature-zone corrosion, and to impede the formation of fireside residue deposits.
When you need our help, we’ll send one of our representative to your site to look at your operations first hand. Only after our representative understands the operation, its problems, and its efficiencies will we develop a specific programme.
The solution we develop will include the appropriate chemical treatment formulations, start-up supervision, and routine monitoring of programme performance after it is in operation.
If a problem occurs in the treatment system, your MELROSE representative can also provide the troubleshooting back-up you need to minimise downtime and maximise production efficiency.
High quality process water begins with good influent treatment
Whether you use the water for processing, for make-up, or for boiler water, it usually must be pre-treated to insure sufficient quality for these applications. The amount of treatment depends on the source of the water, its chemical content, and its end use.
If the influent is drawn from a deep well, it may only require softening to reduce the hardness. But if your influent water comes from surface sources, it most likely contains mud, silt, and natural organics which must be removed by coagulation, sedimentation, and filtration.
Water chemistry is critical to steam generating plants
In the steam-generating plant, water treatment is particularly critical to both operating efficiency and equipment life. The feedwater make-up must be pure, and the recirculating boiler water and condensate must be kept scrupulously free of contaminants and dissolved oxygen. The pH must be precisely controlled; and the exposed metal surfaces in the boiler, the feedwater heater, and the boiler feed pumps must be protected.
Choosing the right boiler water treatment programme takes experience
Boiler water treatment programmes fall into four basic categories: precipitation, chelation, solubilisation, and pH/phosphate coordination. Which one is most effective depends upon several factors including boiler design, operating pressure, steaming rate, make-up water quality, and the steam’s end use. Choosing the proper programme takes experience. That’s where the Melrose representative brings you that extra measure of expertise.
Supplemental chemical treatment can prevent boiler system failures
Supplemental MELROSE chemicals can help your boiler treatment programme in three ways. Oxygen scavengers improve deaerator efficiency and reduce oxygen in the condensate. Ion exchange additives help rejuvenate fouled ion exchange resins and restore make-up water polishing effectiveness. Selected dispersants ensure that trace boiler water solids do not precipitate on heat transfer surfaces.
MELROSE’s neutralizing and filming amines protect condensate systems from corrosion and heat transfer degradation
Corrosion in return lines is damaging in itself. But often even more damaging are the detrimental effects of corrosion products like ferrous bicarbonate, ferrous or ferric oxides, and metallic hydroxides which can be carried back into the boiler. Once these compounds start to deposit on the boiler water side surface, they cause localized overheating and internal boiler corrosion.
Neutralizing and/or filming amine formulations help protect the condensate system primarily by preventing the formation of carbonic acid and/or by forming a thin, impermeable barrier on the metal surface of the return lines.
In many cases, the most effective condensate treatment is a combination of neutralising and filming amines
Since many times a neutralising or filming amine alone is not as effective as a combination of the two, your MELROSE representative can recommend a careful blend of neutralising and filming amines which will best control the conditions in your condensate system. Balancing the distribution ratios of neutralizing amines between the vapour and the liquid phase at al system temperature and pressures is essential in a well-designed condensate treatment programme. Your MELROSE representative can also determine the amount and nature of any emulsifiers, surfactants, and dispersant required to assure uniform coverage throughout the system.
Our chemicals can also make your job easier during fuel handling, storage, and use
You can use MELROSE products to counteract the common problems encountered in your fuel handling and storage systems.
MELROSE’s stabiliser, solvent, and dispersant-blended products can alleviate sludge formation and maintain fuel mixture consistency during storage and handling.
Alkaline based formulations and/or emulsifiers can help prevent the formation of extremely corrosive acids and the collection of free water in the preburner system.
Our treatment chemicals can improve fuel combustion, decrease slag formation, and improve stack gas quality
Total fuel cost hinges on combustion efficiency. Every 1% drop in combustion efficiency increases fuel cost an equivalent amount. Poor combustion also increases corrosion and deposits in the boiler and decreases stack gas quality.
MELROSE’s combustion catalysts such as magnesium, iron, manganese, cobalt, and copper compounds can, in combination with a thorough understanding of the boiler operating parameters, improve fuel utilisation and minimize subsequent problems such as the formation of sulphuric acid.
Our chemicals protect the boiler while they improve combustion. Fireside additives also minimize slag formation by combining with fuel constituents to form an ash which melts at temperatures greater than 1320°C. Ashes which melt at lower temperatures, especially those which melt below 940°C, usually result in slagging, spalling, and corrosion.
We can perform on-site testing to insure the fireside efficiency of the boiler operations
In addition to combustion efficiency analysis and stack-gas dew-point determinations, your MELROSE representative can measure stack opacity and identify the type and quantity of unburned particles. We can also perform stack emission testing and provide you with a complete fireside profile.
Cooling water presents its own challenges
Industrial processing operations usually demand large volumes of cooling water to provide temperature control for process streams. Cooling water can be a particularly corrosive agent because of its typically high oxygen content, particulate concentrations, and micro-organism counts, combined with its low flow rate and its sometimes severe heat load. These problems are compounded in systems of mixed metallurgy.
An increasingly important factor to be considered in cooling water treatment recommendations is governmental restrictions. Federal regulations coupled with provincial and local laws on the nature and quantity of contaminants in industrial discharge make the design of an effective cooling water treatment programme and its implementation a complex task.
In addition to traditional treatment programmes, MELROSE offers alternative solutions encompassing new technology which will not only solve your cooling water problems, but will also allow you to meet your environmental discharge objectives. A complete line of corrosion inhibitors, dispersants, scale control, and microbiological agents are available to meet your needs.
Corrosion inhibitors
To prevent metal loss, MELROSE has developed both metal based (Molybdate and Zinc) and non-metal based (Polyphosphate, Acrylate and Phosphonate) corrosion inhibitors.
The appropriate chemicals and dosages used for corrosion control in colling systems will change depending upon several factors. The constituents in the make-up water vary from system to system and determine its aggressiveness in a particular system Also, a combination of system metallurgy and degree of recycle will contribute to the corrosion tendency. A number of MELROSE programmes can be used to fight the destructive conditions.
Scale inhibitors/dispersants
Because of the high heat load to which cooling water is often subjected as it passes through various processes, suspended and dissolved solids such as silt, silica, iron oxides and hardness salts can foul heat exchanger surfaces by forming hard, crusty deposits. These deposits often lin the exchange tubes and reduce cooling efficiency because of their insulating properties. In addition, the deposition can slow the flow of cooling water because of restricted passages. The result is ineffective cooling due to decreases heat transfer.
MELROSE can supply the chemicals to keep your heat exchangers opearting at peak performance and free from scaling and deposition. Your MELROSE representative will analyse the needs of your particular system and formulate the specific objectives of your system.
Special formulations are necessary to adequately disperse hydrocarbons which have leaked into the cooling circuit. The chemical nature of he oil determines the specific dispersant approach. MELROSE’s expertise in dispersant technology gives us the ability to design and implement effective chemical programmes in highly cycled cooling water systems.
Biocides
The growth of microbiological organisms is greatly encouraged by the warm, incubator- like environment of the cooling water system. These organisms can form a gummy slime mass which attracts silt, dirt, and other suspendes solids flowing through the system. Microbiological growth, and the solid particles they entrain, can severely plug or restrict heat exchanger tubes, and thus reduce heat transfer efficiency. Also, these deposits can cause localised corrosion. MELROSE has a broad range of registered biocide available which, with the assistance of our chlorine helpers, greatly reduce the problems of microbiological growth.
Many cooling tower programmes use chlorine to help eliminate the growth of micro- organisms. However, chlorine kills only on contact with the micro-organisms. It simply oxidises the surface organisms, but not the deposit. To increase the effectiveness of the chlorine, MELROSE has developed microbiological dispersants which function as chlorine helpers. These additives attack the slime mass and gradually disperse it into the bulk water. Because there is more available surface area for the chlorine to attack , more organisms are destroyed. The system is not only brought under biological control, but is much less susceptible to re-inoculation.
The use of MELROSE chlorine helper lets you economise on chlorine usage while doing a more effective job. These properties are particularly important as more stringent chlorine discharge limits are implemented.