Within modern-day plants, there is an increasing need for steam at specific temperatures and pressures.  While improvements have been made to increase operational thermal efficiency and heat rates but the precise, coordinated control of the temperature, pressure, and quality of this steam are still in need.  However, much of the steam production in power and process plants today is not at the required conditions for each application.  Which means they will require conditioning.  Therefore, desuperheaters are a necessity.

It Starts with Superheat

Superheated steam has important advantages in certain applications, such as when used in power stations to drive turbines.  Superheat is almost always an aspect of steam generation.  Without steam generation, the steam travels from the boiler to the point of use cools and condenses.  Superheating can prevent that process, but it requires a small increase in energy.  As a result, at the point of utilization, they must remove it (desuperheated) for predictable condensation as the steam gives up its heat.

Primary Function

The primary function of a desuperheater is to lower the temperature of superheated steam or other vapors.  They accomplish this temperature reduction. As a result of the process vapor being in contact with another liquid like water.  It then evaporates the injected water.

Desuperheaters play a crucial role in power generation, where superheated steam utilization as an energy source.

Power Generation and the Desuperheater

Desuperheaters reduce and condition the temperature of superheated steam in power plants. Which is often a usable energy source for mechanical power generation in steam turbines.  In plants that generate steam for both power generation and process applications, the generated steam has to divert directly to the process side.

What is Turbine Bypass Desuperheating

Desuperheater deployment is to reduce the pressure of superheated steam that supplies around a turbine or another power engine.  They call this turbine bypass desuperheating.  The steam reduction is still strongly superheated, and it is unsuitable for use.  In the steam turbine back-pressure system to which it feeds the steam, the basic requirement is to maintain the pressure and the temperature of the back-pressure steam at a constant level.

Desuperheaters Control Turbine Exhaust Steam

Desuperheaters control the temperature of the turbine exhaust steam.  Usually, at low turbine loads, the steam temperature gets too high and it will require desuperheating to assure proper operation of the downstream installed process equipment.

An Alternative to Traditional Desuperheaters

There is a newer technology to traditional desuperheaters.  It utilizes a low-pressure water injection spray nozzle that we carefully direct upstream.  The flow of the steam causes that cone of water to reverse direction and pass downstream through the mixing module.  The steam and water are then effectively a mixture, reducing the superheat to the right value required for your mixture.

This new option has six fixed mixing elements. So, once the superheated steam goes into the Equalizer module and is combined with the injected cooling product. It is then divided and mixed by the elements in each of the six holes.  Multiple impingement mixing zones develop at the exit, completing the three-stage contacting process.  The Komax Equalizer is perfect for power LNG plants as an effective power generating source.