Energy

High-pressure steam generators and boilers require feedwater with silica below 0.02 ppm, total hardness near zero, and conductivity below 0.1 microsiemens per centimeter to prevent scale buildup on heat transfer surfaces. Scale deposits as thin as 1 mm reduce heat transfer efficiency by up to 10% and can cause tube failures at high operating pressures. AMPAC USA builds multi-stage RO and demineralization systems that consistently meet ASME boiler water quality guidelines.

RO serves as the primary demineralization stage, removing 95-99% of dissolved solids before polishing with mixed-bed deionization to achieve near-zero conductivity in the final boiler feedwater. A typical train includes clarification and softening for hardness removal, multimedia filtration, 5-micron cartridge filtration, and then the RO array before the DI polisher. Our systems are designed for continuous duty with redundant trains so one loop can come offline for maintenance without interrupting plant operations.

Zero liquid discharge means all process wastewater is treated and reused internally with no liquid effluent discharged to surface water or sewer. Environmental permits for power plants near sensitive watersheds increasingly require ZLD for cooling tower blowdown, RO concentrate, and chemical cleaning waste streams. AMPAC USA designs ZLD systems that concentrate blowdown through brine concentrators and evaporators, recovering 95%+ of the water for reuse.

Cooling towers concentrate minerals through evaporation, and the cycles of concentration achievable before scaling or corrosion occurs depend directly on the quality of makeup water. RO-treated makeup water with low TDS allows operators to run 8-12 cycles of concentration instead of the 3-4 cycles typical with untreated municipal water, cutting makeup water demand and blowdown volume significantly. AMPAC USA sizes cooling water RO systems based on tower evaporation rate and target cycles of concentration.

Utility-scale power plants require makeup water flows from 100,000 to several million GPD, depending on plant capacity and cooling tower design. We build parallel RO train configurations with automatic lead-lag switching and redundant feed pumps to meet these flow requirements with high uptime. Our project engineering team coordinates with plant operations staff on integration with existing chemical feed, controls, and SCADA systems.

Surface water from rivers and lakes contains suspended solids, algae, and organic matter that foul RO membranes without pretreatment. A standard pretreatment train for surface water includes coagulation, flocculation, sedimentation, and multimedia filtration to bring turbidity below 0.5 NTU and SDI below 4 before the membrane array. AMPAC USA conducts source water testing before system design to ensure the pretreatment is matched to seasonal water quality variations at your specific intake location.