Abstract
Scaling due to calcium carbonate precipitation is a major problem in cooling water circuits in many of Eskom power stations. Some earlier studies have suggested that the natural organic matter (NOM) present in the cooling water may reduce the amount of scaling by limiting the formation of calcium carbonate precipitation. It is therefore the interest of this study to investigate further the role of the NOM in calcium carbonate precipitation at Hendrina power station.
The raw water and cooling water were analysed for the major metal ions, anions, alkalinity, conductivity and total organic matter to determine the precipitation potentials of calcite and aragonite using MINTEQA2 speciation program. The NOM was isolated from the raw and cooling water using ion exchange resins, XAD-8/XAD-4 resins and ultrafiltration membranes with molecular weight cut-offs of 100 kDa, 10 kDa and 1 kDa. The isolated fractions were then characterized by ultraviolet and visible absorbance methods and high performance size exclusion chromatography. The effect of the isolated fractions of the NOM from the cooling water on calcium carbonate precipitation was then investigated.
The results indicated the presence calcium carbonate precipitation in the cooling water, but the raw water was undersaturated with calcium carbonate. The NOM isolated from the raw water indicated the predominance of the hydrophobic acid NOM (74.17 %) and to a lower extent the presence of hydrophilic acid NOM (34.49%). The NOM isolated from the cooling water also showed the predominance of the hydrophobic acid NOM (69.25 %) and to a lower extent the presence of the hydrophilic neutral acid NOM (20.13 %) and minimal presence of hydrophilic acid NOM (9.51 %). The results obtained from high pressure size exclusion chromatography analyses indicated that in both the raw water and cooling water the NOM was having a low molecular weight (<13.2030 kDa). The specific ultraviolet absorbance (SUVA) of the raw water was high (>4) which also suggested that it contained predominantly hydrophobic NOM and that of the cooling
i
water was in the range 2-4 suggesting that it contained a mixture of the hydrophobic and hydrophilic acid NOM.
The hydrophobic acid, hydrophilic acid and hydrophilic neutral acid NOM fractions isolated from the cooling water reduced the amount of calcium carbonate precipitate formed in synthetic water sample. This effect was more pronounced with hydrophobic and hydrophilic acid NOM fractions than with the hydrophilic neutral acid NOM fraction.
Dr. M. Shumane