Power Plant Water Treatment and Chemistry: Best Practices for Thermal Plants

 

     In the power industry, there is process water and wastewater that must be managed and often treated. Company SAMCO lists six water management and water treatment service options that they provide for power plants: Boiler Feed Water Treatment, Cooling Tower Water Treatment, Demineralization & Ultrapure Water Treatment, Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD), Water Treatment, and Raw Water Treatment. I will examine each of these below, noting that SAMCO is dividing them somewhat into the services that they offer. Below are some water treatment benefits.

Boiler Feed Water Treatment

     SAMCO notes that boiler feed water usually needs some kind of treatment to reduce the potential for fouling, corrosion, and scaling that can damage equipment. Below is a list of metallic minerals and dissolved gases that can be problematic and should be removed. SAMCO can remove chemicals, carcinogens, oil, grease, and more.

 

Cooling Tower and Condenser Water Treatment

     Cooling tower and condenser water are affected by biofouling, corrosion, organic growth, and water scarcity. SAMCO provides technologies such as side-stream filtration and cooling tower blowdown needs.

  

Demineralization & Ultrapure Water Treatment Solutions

     These solutions are used to remove hardness and dissolved solids. SAMCO notes:

“Hardness and dissolved solids can wreak havoc on a facility’s equipment, and softening is often not enough treatment for most high-pressure boilers and process streams (especially for the microelectronics and electronics industries).”

 

Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD) Solutions

     SAMCO utilizes its filtration and thermal technologies to treat and recycle water back into process water using a range of technologies. Below, they note that they can treat water, reduce its volume, and generate solids, for which disposal can be easier.

 

Industrial Water Treatment Solutions

     This seems to be a more general category. The company focuses on custom engineering solutions, so generally each project will be different.

 

Raw Water Treatment Solutions

     As above, raw water treatment solutions are also custom-engineered. These treatment systems are commonly used. Solids, metals, silica, bacteria, and hardness are common issues with raw water, as described below.

 

Water Chemistry in Power Plants

     The website Super Chemistry Classes gives a nice overview and outline of the water chemistry of power plant water processes. The three main uses of water in power plants are to generate steam, for cooling, and for heat transfer. Steam turbines utilize the steam. Cooling water dissipates heat. Heat transfer is utilized for heat exchangers, steam recovery, and waste heat recovery, typically in condensate systems. Power plants source water from rivers, lakes, and municipal supplies. The bulk of the article is given below.

 

Cooling Water Intake Management

     Since power plant water often comes from rivers and lakes, it is important to manage and filter what makes it to the intakes. Cooling water intake structures (CWIS) withdraw water for rejecting waste heat. Biological growth, water chemistry changes, hydraulic forces, drifting debris, and weather events can affect CWISs. Screening out debris and aquatic life is an important part of intake management. Corrosion and biofouling of equipment are also challenges with CWISs. CWISs are often monitored manually by plant personnel, but remote monitoring is becoming more common. 

     According to an article in Power Magazine:

“Continuous remote monitoring enhanced with artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI and ML) capabilities enables tracking of ultimate heat sink conditions and CWIS performance under evolving conditions and informs improved future designs.”

“Advances in sensor technology now enable continuous or near-real-time monitoring of both intake components and source water conditions. In addition, AI and ML can facilitate rapid background analysis of large datasets, delivering actionable insight to operators and maintenance teams, as well as trend monitoring over longer periods. Being well-informed leads to reduced downtime, better event management, fewer unplanned outages, increased generation revenue, and enhanced safety—especially critical for nuclear facilities.”

     Debris event forecasting is important since such events can arise suddenly, and modeling how an intake will be affected by things like extreme weather is important. It is argued that condition-based maintenance can be more cost-effective than schedule-based maintenance, which has been the situation in the past. Remote monitoring can act as an early warning system.

“Industries such as offshore oil and gas, aquaculture, and shipping use underwater camera systems extensively. These systems, when coupled with AI and ML, enable automated object identification, size estimation, and abundance estimates. At CWIS, remote underwater cameras can also improve safety by reducing diver exposure and minimizing downtime by allowing detailed inspections during pump operations.”

     These can be very useful for CWISs since the intakes are submerged. The graphic below shows where in these systems, optical cameras would be useful for remote monitoring, seven in this case.

 

References:

 

Water Chemistry in Power Plants: Key Principles and Best Practices. Jiya lal verma. March 24, 2025. Super Chemistry Classes. Water Chemistry in Power Plants: Key Principles and Best Practices - Super Chemistry Classes

Power Plant Water Treatment Solutions. Samco. Power Plant Water Treatment Solutions | SAMCO Technologies

How Advanced Monitoring and Early Warning Tools Are Revolutionizing Power Plant Cooling Water Intake Management. Maarten Bruijs, Timothy Hogan, Jonathan Black, and David Olack. Power Magazine. September 2, 2025. How Advanced Monitoring and Early Warning Tools Are Revolutionizing Power Plant Cooling Water Intake Management