Deaerator

A deaerator is a device that is widely used for the removal of air and other dissolved gases from the feedwater to steam-generating boilers.
In particular, dissolved oxygen in boiler feedwaters will cause serious corrosion damage in steam systems by attaching to the walls of metal
piping and other metallic equipment and forming oxides (rust). Water also combines with any dissolved carbon dioxide to form carbonic
acid that causes further corrosion. Most deaerators are designed to remove oxygen down to levels of 7 ppb by weight (0.005 cm³/L) or less.
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There are two basic types of deaerators, the tray-type and the spray-type:

The tray-type (also called the cascade-type) includes a vertical domed deaeration section mounted on top of a horizontal cylindrical
vessel which serves as the deaerated boiler feedwater storage tank.

The spray-type consists only of a horizontal (or vertical) cylindrical vessel which serves as both the deaeration section and the boiler
feedwater storage tank.

Types of deaerators:

There are many different horizontal and vertical deaerators available from a number of manufacturers, and the actual construction details
will vary from one manufacturer to another. Figures 1 and 2 are representative schematic diagrams that depict each of the two major types
of deaerators.

Tray-type deaerator Spray-type deaerator

Figure 1: A schematic diagram of a typical tray-type deaerator. Figure 2: A schematic diagram of a typical spray-type deaerator.

The typical horizontal tray-type deaerator in Figure 1 has a vertical domed deaeration section mounted above a horizontal boiler feedwater
storage vessel. Boiler feedwater enters the vertical dearation section above the perforated trays and flows downward through the
perforations. Low-pressure dearation steam enters below the perforated trays and flows upward through the perforations. Some designs
use various types of packing material, rather than perforated trays, to provide good contact and mixing between the steam and the boiler
feed water.

The steam strips the dissolved gas from the boiler feedwater and exits via the vent at the top of the domed section. Some designs may
include a vent condenser to trap and recover any water entrained in the vented gas. The vent line usually includes a valve and just enough
steam is allowed to escape with the vented gases to provide a small and visible telltale plume of steam.The deaerated water flows down
into the horizontal storage vessel from where it is pumped to the steam generating boiler system. Low-pressure heating steam, which
enters the horizontal vessel through a sparger pipe in the bottom of the vessel, is provided to keep the stored boiler feedwater warm.
External insulation of the vessel is typically provided to minimize heat loss.

Spray-type deaerator

As shown in Figure 2, the typical spray-type deaerator is a horizontal vessel which has a preheating section (E) and a deaeration section (F).
The two sections are separated by a baffle(C). Low-pressure steam enters the vessel through a sparger in the bottom of the vessel.

The boiler feedwater is sprayed into section (E) where it is preheated by the rising steam from the sparger. The purpose of the feedwater
spray nozzle (A) and the preheat section is to heat the boiler feedwater to its saturation temperature to facilitate stripping out the
dissolved gases in the following deaeration section.

The preheated feedwater then flows into the dearation section (F), where it is deaerated by the steam rising from the sparger system. The
gases stripped out of the water exit via the vent at the top of the vessel. Again, some designs may include a vent condenser to trap and
recover any water entrained in the vented gas. Also again, the vent line usually includes a valve and just enough steam is allowed to escape
with the vented gases to provide a small and visible telltale plume of steam

The deaerated boiler feedwater is pumped from the bottom of the vessel to the steam generating boiler system.

Deaeration steam

The deaerators in the steam generating systems of most thermal power plants use low pressure steam obtained from an extraction point
in their steam turbine system. However, the steam generators in many large industrial facilities such as petroleum refineries may use
whatever low-pressure steam is available.

Oxygen scavengers

Oxygen scavenging chemicals are very often added to the deaerated boiler feedwater to remove any last traces of oxygen that were not
removed by the deaerator. The most commonly used oxygen scavenger is sodium sulfite (Na2SO3). It is very effective and rapidly reacts with
traces of oxygen to form sodium sulfate (Na2SO4) which is non-scaling. Another widely used oxygen scavenger is hydrazine (N2H4).

Other scavengers include 1,3-diaminourea (also known as carbohydrazide), diethylhydroxylamine (DEHA), nitriloacetic acid (NTA),
ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA), and hydroquinone.

Boiler Feed Deaerators - Update

The principal governing these plants is intimate contact between the feed water and the steam which both heats the water and strips
dissolved gases from it. The three ways of achieving this are : (a) spraying fine water droplets into a steam space; (b) bubbling steam
through the body of water; and (c) exposing falling water to steam over extended surfaces. Contact time for both spraying and bubbling is
short, so these processes are usually combined with, or replaced by, the extended liquid surface principle.

A series of horizontal trays has been the preferred extended surface design used in the USA for many years. The water drops from tray to
tray through small holes; provision is made either for the steam to pass through each tray section as a vertical flow, or to flow horizontally
across each tray in parallel. This second arrangement is not counter-current between water and steam and therefore is less efficient than
the first.

Superior to both these arrangements is the randomly packed tower, which is fully counter-current, steam rising through the packing and
progressively condensing. For the same volume, the surface area of randomly packed thin-walled cylindrical rings, typically 38x38mm, is at
least ten times greater than trays with falling water 100mm apart.

The packed tower scores in the stripping of dissolved gases because of this far greater surface area. Europe is moving away from tray
designs to the packed tower process. For sea-going applications the packed tower has a clear advantage because random packing has a
measure of continuous flow redistribution, whereas trays suffer variable distribution with vessel pitch and roll.