The change in characteristics of water during it's passage through closed circuit cooling water system

Power stations employing closed circuit cooling water system for dissipating their waste heat often face the problem of scaling on the condenser tube surfaces, despite the provision of low concentration factor (C.F). values. In order to understand the chemical changes taking place in water, when it passes through a wet cooling tower in operation, raw water sample from a thermal power station was exposed to identical conditions in laboratory. The raw water sample exposed to atmosphere, and aerated continuously, was maintained at a temperature of 40±1 degC. The chemical characteristics, such as pH, conductivity, alkalinity, silica, hardness, chloride, sodium, etc were followed along with the changing C.F. values. This paper explains the chemical changes in the water during its passage through the cooling tower operation processes in the light of the results obtained and the practical implications of these findings in real system. (author)