"Cleaning in Place" for Plate heat exchanger ( PHE )

[Yobbo]

Hello,

I am confronted with a question about Cleaning in Place( CIP) of a PHE in the most environmental acceptable way. The risk of emitting chemicals to the environment is to be reduced to 0, due to political reasons. The cooling medium of the PHE in question is raw surface water of a lake. Biofouling takes place. Due to the fact that opening up the PHE for cleaning purposes leads to regular necessary , but costly, replacement of the plates CIP is considered the best solution. But due to the sensitivity of the environmental requirements the kind of chemicals to be applied will be limited. Does anyone of you have experience with a situation like this or can you give me a hint about what chemical might be applicable?

Karel Postulart, The Netherlands
Nuon Power Generation

 

[Drazen]

I was working in food industry, and generally removal of bio-fouling, especially when it is in form of mold (the most usual situation) is very hard, regular CIP does not help at all.

CIP actually has its function if it is conducted on daily or batch-to-batch bases when you are working with anyhow clean process and want to preserve cleanliness and sanitary conditions.

If you already have contamination, CIP is not so useful, if at all.

I would try to browse for bio-agents used for open-loop cooling towers, they should be environmental friendly by default.

You will also need to make analysis in bio-lab, as there could be large diversity of bio-fouling, and you need to now what are you fighting against.

 

[imok2]

This may help you for a solution

http://www.northwestgeothermal.com/geothermalgreenclean.html

 

[willard3]

I will tell you what I tell my clients: plate heat exchangers are a bi*** to clean, use a shell and tube which is easy to clean.

There isn't much difference in efficiency when they are new and the shell and tube is more efficient when both are dirty.