Cleaning of Heat Exchangers
Heat exchangers are critical components of your system and are in regular need of cleaning. The constant need for process cooling is provided by the water circulating over heat exchanger tubes and cooling tower. Because the heat exchanger performance is paramount to keep your system running at required capacity it is crucial to keep the tubes in optimal shape at all times. Eqobrush helps in achieving this.
Fouled heat exchangers reduce the efficiency of your operation, with possible safety issues down the road. Also, consider the financial damage caused by fouled heat exchangers, as fouling is documented to cause for 8% of industries maintenance budget.
Why tube cleaning?
Evaporative cooling is the most efficient method of process cooling. Water is the critical component in this to avoid the build-up of heat in you process. Water management is inevitable to keep the system from accumulating residue, fouling, scaling etc. Even with optimal water quality management regular cleanings should be scheduled to prevent heat exchangers from clogging up unless alternative methods are applied.
The deposit mostly consists of algae, which forms a slimy layer and cannot be avoided by various chemical cleaning processes. This layer, with the addition of calcium and magnesium starts solidifying and creating a hard layer of residue that is very hard to clean. This is why chemical cleaning is not that efficient.
Cleaning interruptions – not as effective as you’d hope
Chemical Cleaning
Without physically cleaning all of the micro particles and build up, it’s impossible to expect a pristine clean system. Excellent chemical water treatment can help and reduce the rates of accumulation, but not remove the threat altogether.
On top of that, chemical cleaning makes you stop the whole process, until the residue is removed to an acceptable level (no complete removal can be achieved). In addition, the typical chemical cleaning uses chemicals that are harmful to the environment, and require to be done routinely.
Mechanical cleaning
In contrary to chemical cleaning, mechanical cleaning can remove all the fouling from the pipes and can therefore be done at longer intervals than chemical cleaning. The cost of mechanical cleaning however are substantially higher than chemical cleaning.
Depending on the maintenance turnaround schedule of the process facility a choice between chemical and mechanical cleaning will be made.
A Cost effective and Eco Friendly way to clean the heat exchanger tubes
There are other ways to clean your heat exchangers. The usual ways of cleaning involve maintenance-labor, chemicals, and standstill costs. However, there are systems that allow the tubes to clean themselves, continuously and with no chemicals involved.
The Eqobrush system is such an on-line cleaning system. It is designed with both cost-saving and the environment in mind and offers long term value. The Eqobrush automatic brushing system performs brushing of all the tubes in the heat exchanger every 4 hours, 24 hours a day and 365 days a year. The brushes in the tubes do the work of cleaning the system for you, all of the time. This means that the heat exchangers no longer dictate your turn around moments and perform always as new.
Find out more about Eqobrush on our website at www.eqobrush.co
