S1740106 Development and Prescription of Steam Explosion Retardant

Abstract

Polyethylene glycol (PEG) was found to be a reliable retardant of steam explosions. In order to investigate the effects of molecular weight of PEG, concentration and salt additives on the controllability of steam explosions, experiments were conducted for tin drops immersed in a solution pool. Steam explosion was suppressed with a 0.03 wt% PEG solution for molecular weight of 4 million. This is because the cloudy-point phenomenon stabilizes vapor film and prevents the solution from mixing finely by the precipitated solute near the steam-water interface. The molecular weight must be selected in reference to the cloudy-point temperature to be lower than saturation temperature by a certain degrees at the target pressure. Steam explosion may occur in a PEG solution by adding 1 wt% of sodium chloride, because such salts act as steam explosion promoter and reduce the cloudy-point temperature significantly.