It is necessary to maintain silica concentration at a minimum in boiler feed water, because the silica in a boiler, operating at higher pressure and temperature, not only tends to form complex scale causing lowering in boiler efficiency, but evaporates with steam and deposits on turbine blades resulting in many accidents.
Widespread procedures for removal of silica in water are the chemical treatment by the addition of chemicals such as aluminium hydroxide and magnesium oxide, by aluminium hydroxide being produced in water by the electrolysis of aluminium and the ion exchange treatment by the anion exchange resin. But, because there had been few basic studies on these procedures, the writer investigated here the silica removal in the sodium silicate solution containing 20ppm of silica and the tap water containing 18.7ppm of silica and according to the order of procedures aforementiond following results were obtained.
(1) The quantity of removed silica increased with the increase in quantity of aluminium hydroxide added and the Freundlich adsorption isotherm holds exactly between the residual content of silica and the quantity of removed silica.
The pH value of solution influenced the silica removal efficiency, The residual content of silica was minimum when the pH of solution was 11.
The content of silica in tap water became about 0.6ppm when the content of aluminium hydroxide was 600ppm and the pH of water was 11.
The quantity of removed silica decreased with the increase in temperature of operation.
(2) The magnesium hydroxide and two kinds of magnesium oxides prepared by the dehydration of magnesium hydroxide at 350°C and 1000°C were used as the removing agents.
Magnesium oxide being prepared by the dehydration of magnesium hydroxide at 350°C showed the greatest silica removal efficiency.
The higher the temperature of operation, the more efficient was the removal of silica and the necessary retention time was 15 minutes at 95°C.
The pH value of solution influenced the silica removal efficiency and the minimum content of silica was obtained at a pH of 7. In the case of tap water, the residual content of silica became 1.2ppm at pH value 7, the content of magnesium oxide being 600ppm which was prepared by the dehydration at 350°C, the operation temperature 95°C and the retention time 15 minutes.
(3) The quantity of silica removed was proportional to the quantity of aluminium hydroxide prepared by the passage of direct current through the sodium silicate solution.
The residual content of silica became 0.3ppm when the content of aluminium hydroxide was 100ppm.
When the alternating current was used, the aluminium hydroxide produced were small, hence the amount of removed silica was small.
The residual content of silica in tap water became 0.3ppm when the content of aluminium hydroxide was 300ppm.
(4) When the sodium silicate solution was passed through each column of anion exchange resins namely Amberlite 410, Dowex-2 and Duolite A-40 the content of silica in effluent solution was reduced to 0.05ppm-0.07ppm.
In the same process, the content of silica in the tap water became 0.2ppm-0.3ppm.
The content of silica in the tap water was reduced to 0.2ppm when the tap water was passed through a column in which Amberlite 410 and Amberlite 120 were mixed.
Finally, the silica removal efficiency of four kinds of procedures that had been studied was compared and it was concluded that the ion exchange treatment and the process of electrolysis were recommendable.
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