The Low Sulfite Mystery

In celebration of Industrial Water Week, I asked my colleague and friend Gene Tonetti to write about his more interesting experiences in industrial water treatment. Here is one of the stories he shared. Enjoy and please comment about similar experiences you may have had!

During a sales call to a Midwest hospital, the potential client complained of low sulfite readings in the boilers. This problem had never been an issue before, and the current water treatment rep had recommended increasing sulfite feed on his last 3 service call reports.

The boiler logs and sulfite usage were reviewed for the previous month which confirmed chemical usage was about 4 times higher than in prior months. The deaerator pressure and temperature was noted. The deaerator pressure at the time of our survey was 10 psig; however, the temperature was only 210 degrees F. The temperature should have been at least 232 F at this pressure.

We gained access to the roof and found the deaerator vent line was not even warm, and there was no visible steam plume. When we notified the hospital, one of their operators informed us that he had closed the vent line valve to save energy. He closed the valve because “…of the wasted steam that was going to atmosphere.”

We asked the operator to open the deaerator vent line valve until the vented steam plume was approximately 18”. We told the hospital to leave the sulfite dosage as is and to notify us of the boiler sulfite residual in the morning. The plant engineer called the next day to tell us that the boiler sulfite had increased from 6 ppm on the day of our visit to 83 ppm.

As a result of our detective work, we greatly reduced the sulfite usage, and more importantly, we were awarded the account. The previous chemical supplier had this account for over 20 years.

Gene Tonetti

#IndustrialWaterWeek