Treatment of water for steam locomotives

jim pastorius posted:

Anyone familiar with dealing with oxygen in boiler water ??

My experience is in electric power utility boiler water chemistry. I was in charge of all water treatment at one of our plants. High pressure water tube boilers (2000 to 2800 psig). Dissolved oxygen is highly corrosive to ferrous materials in the high temperatures of high pressure saturated water.

We used a mechanical method in the condenser and the deaerator of the condensate cycle. I️ don’t think this is applicable in steam locomotives. At the deaerator outlet we added hydrazine, which is an oxygen scavenger. It is volatile, so it adds no solids to the water. Above 500 or so degrees it converts to ammonium hydroxide, which also helps raising the pH some. (At these extreme water temperatures very small quantities of dissolved solids are tolerable < 10ppm. A little before I retired [2012], they were running completely volatile treatment.)

Before I started work there, some of the lower pressure boilers use sulfites as oxygen scavenger. 

jim pastorius posted:

Anyone familiar with dealing with oxygen in boiler water ??

Jim, I remember in my early years at the refinery where I worked, we had some Carbonic Acid problems due to a an eternal problem with our boiler house de aerator drum. I remember having to fog the chemicals to the feed system to keep from eating up the piping and exchangers at the condensation points in our steam system......Final cure was installing a new Deaerator Drum, but that was a year away, and many dollars in chemicals were purchased, to take care of the problem on a quick fix......

We also installed 3/4" orfice unions, with 1/8" orfice holes, on the High Pressure supply steam to all of our steam exchangers. This did help, but our problem wasn't taken care of until our New Deaerator Drum was built, and put into service. This took a complete refinery shut down to make the switch over.....!

jim pastorius posted:

Name of the book "Locomotive Engine  Running and Management" by Angus Sinclair  4th edition 1885  It is a hoot to read.

Ah, yes. I have the 1908 Edition. A great resource.

Really funny-in the first part they emphasize  engineers  are supposed to be gentlemen. evidently the early ones weren't !

Brandy posted:

I always wondered how the water was treated for steam locomotives, especially after I went to work at an Oil Refinery in the late 60's. I was quick to learn water treatment, when I went to work in the refinery Operations Dept. The refinery where I 1st started we treated Louisville City Water, and at Catlettsburg, Ky where I finished my career, we pumped water directly from the Big Sandy River, and pretreated from scratch.

I remember seeing as a kid at the old K&I Railroad round house there was a couple of above ground stand pipes, one being near the round house, and one near the coal shute....Thinking back , I figured it was just City Water from Louisville, and then the railroad no doubt, did the water treatment some how, when and after the engines were serviced, and water replentished in the tenders. I just never remember seeing one of the roundhouse gang adding any extra of anything into the tenders, other than coal, and sand when the engine was pulled under the sanding column.....

I do remember seeing , and being present a few times, when there was a boiler wash being done, to some of the engines at the roundhouse. (B&O/K&I/Southern) Monon had completely dieselized by the time that I had gotten old enough to slip off from home........Just thinking. I know there are probably a few that could add some education to my question on here........!

 

When I  was responsible for treating the water for the SPS700 I pulled boiler water samples at various times and had a local water treatment lab do a full analysis, from which we used a treatment mixed up by the company, and labeled as product "700".  Had very little scale buildup during that time.  Don't know what they have been using over the past 10 years, but the current rebuild revealed a lot of scale buildup after they switched companies and discontinued the program we had been using.

Here's what we use on the New Hope Valley:

Cannonball Products