Technoeconomic Benefits of Film-Forming Amine Products Applied to Steam Surface Condensers
In a conventional Rankine cycle, the majority of power plants employ surface condensers that use pumped cooling water to reject heat from the cycle. In such cases, heat rejection occurs in a shell and tube heat exchanger by film-wise condensation of low-pressure steam on stainless steel, titanium, brass, or copper-nickel tubing. To improve the thermal performance of steam surface condensers, a replenishable film-forming substance (FFS) can be ap-plied to the condenser tubing to promote efficient dropwise condensation. Conventionally, film-forming amine prod-uct (FFAP) coatings protect boiler surfaces from oxidative corrosion, which substantially reduces the operation and maintenance costs. To quantify the technical and economic benefits of FFAP coatings applied to condenser tubing due to the promotion of dropwise condensation, a thermal resistance network model was established. Using a rep-resentative steam surface condenser, the improvements in thermal performance (overall heat transfer coefficient) and process parameters (net plant efficiency, cooling water flowrate, and turbine backpressure) were determined due to the enhancement in the condensation heat transfer coefficient. Experimentally measured condensation heat transfer coefficients for common condenser materials were compared with the modeling results and were found to be within attainable bounds. Lastly, the trend in total heat exchanger cost reduction is generalized to understand the trade-off between reduced surface area for heat rejection and increase in coating application costs for a re-plenishable coating system.