Preceedings available

The preceedings of the 2nd EPRI/PPChem Conference "Interaction of Organics and Organic Plant Cycle Chemicals with Water, Steam and Materials," November 4–6, 2008, Lucerne, Switzerland, are available from Ladi Bursik

November 2008 - Editorial

Dear readers:

As is standard in our journal, in this letter the editor introduces all papers appearing in this issue of the PowerPlant Chemistry journal. This time, however, the editor also has another concern: the PowerPlant Chemistry journal is distributed and read worldwide (by the way, we are very proud of this fact!). Due to the typical long runs for standard mail, in particular to overseas, many readers will probably not receive this issue until the beginning of January 2009. To all these readers: All the best wishes for health, happiness and prosperity in 2009 to you and your families.

The first paper in this PowerPlant Chemistry issue is an in-depth review of corrosion problems experienced in nuclear power plants, such as flow-accelerated corrosion of carbon steel, intergranular stress corrosion cracking of stainless steel, primary water stress corrosion cracking of nickel base alloy, and wall thinning of Zircaloy-2 (Corrosion of Structural Materials and Electrochemistry in High Temperature Water of Nuclear Power Systems). Shunsuke Uchida is the author of this paper.

From November 4–6, 2008, the Second International Conference Interaction of Organics and Organic Cycle Treatment Chemicals with Water, Steam, and Materials sponsored by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), Palo Alto, CA, U.S.A. and PowerPlant Chemistry GmbH took place in Lucerne, Switzerland. Attendees from 20 countries (three continents) participated in this important event. All of them thought highly of the paper presented by James A. Mathews from EPRI elucidating the EPRI philosophy with respect to organics (Organics in the Power Plant Cycle – An EPRI Perspective). This paper is included in this journal issue. We do not plan to withhold from our readers the important information presented and discussed in great detail at this conference. For this reason, we are preparing to publish selected papers presented at the conference in some of the upcoming PowerPlant Chemistry journal issues.

Derek H. Lister, Lihui Liu, Andrew D. Feicht, Mahsa Khatibi, William G. Cook, Kazutoshi Fujiwara, Eiichi Kadoi, Taku Ohira, Hideki Takiguchi, and Shunsuke Uchida present a detailed study dealing with flow-accelerated corrosion under feedwater conditions in secondary cycles of pressurized water reactors (A Fundamental Study of Flow-Accelerated Corrosion in Feedwater Systems).

John A. Wilson, Michelle Mura, Susan E. Garcia, and Joseph F. Giannelli report on the application of membrane-based condensate filtration in a boiling water reactor cycle, a viable economic and technical option for comparable tasks (Commissioning of the First U.S. Hollow Fiber Condensate Filtration System).

Mauricio Chocrón, Ivanna Rodriguez, Narciso Fernández, Raul Manera, Diego Quinteros, Luis Ovando, and Ricardo Saínz are the authors of the fifth November 2008 paper. They provide a report on the reasons for and experience with the replacement of morpholine by ethanolamine for alkalizing the secondary cycle of a CANDU pressurized heavy water reactor. The plant operator considers the modification successful (Modifications in the Secondary Circuit Chemistry Control of Embalse NPP).

In the February 2008 issue, we introduced our project PPChem 101 "Fossil Cycle Chemistry" with the first lesson (What Is Plant Cycle Chemistry and Why Is It Important for Steam and Power Generating Plants?). In this issue, we present the ninth lesson in this series (Boiler Water Treatment – Part 2). We hope that this lesson will also be positively received, as all past lessons have been.

That's all for now. Remain true to us and do not forget: the best source of the latest information on power plant chemistry is a subscription to our journal.

Albert Bursik, Editor