Chemical cleaning is a method to derive surfaces and walls of equipment, boilers, pipelines, vessels, kettles and heat exchangers of unwanted contaminants.
Close synonyms: Scale or Deposits Removal, as per Oilfield Glossary, http://www.glossary.oilfield.slb.com/Display.cfm?Term=scale%20removal
Chemical Cleaning is an efficient, cost-effective way to remove corrosion, deposits, residual oils/greases, and other obtrusive contaminants from tainted surfaces.
Chemical cleaning is applied as maintenance and cleaning tool to the following settings.
· Boilers
· Steam Generators
· Cooling System De-fouling
· Heat Exchangers
· Pipelines
· Pickling Processes
· Refrigeration Systems
Chemical cleaning is a safer, more effective and more economical method of cleaning equipment than older, labor-intensive mechanical methods. It offers many advantages, such as eliminating dismantling for cleaning which saves time, labor and cost
In Boilers:
Chemical cleaning has been considered a necessary part of boiler maintenance for many years. The objective of a chemical cleaning is to safely remove all the deposits from the inside of the boiler tubes. In low-pressure boilers, chemical cleaning typically removes calcium carbonate and other hard adherent scales.
In higher-pressure boilers, the major deposit removed are iron oxides and some copper oxides.
Chemical cleaning can improve the boiler heat rate and reduce the number of tube failures. It typically improves the stability of boiler chemistry.

Boiler Steam Drum Tubes full of scale, prior to chemical cleaning

Boiler Steam Drum Tubes without scale, after chemical cleaning
In Heat Exchangers:
Chemical cleaning of heat exchangers is one technique to achieve
the objectives of cheaper and quicker maintenance on fouled heat exchangers. It is broadly defined as cleaning a fouled heat exchanger using a chemical to dissolve some or all of the constituents of the solid fouling deposit, by flowing the solvent chemical through the exchanger (circulating) without the need for disassembly.
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