Water chemistry: protecting the industry's investment. Making or breaking plant operations

Good water chemistry is a good way to preserve the life of steam generators and other plant components. Pipe cracks in boiling-water reactors, tube pitting, denting and cracking in pressurized-water reactors are all problems that are surfacing due to poor water chemistry, i.e., the lack of water purity. Water is essential to power generation and is corrosive under the best of conditions. But to a metal system filled with water and subject to high pressure, high temperature, and impurities such as chlorides, the potential for rapid and permanent damage rises to serious proportions. In addition, radiation levels increase from corrosive products circulated through the reactor vessel