The goal of this seventh conference in this series is to promote breakthrough thinking and explore new theoretical and practical approaches to address the grand challenges for fouling of heat exchangers. The conference provides a forum for industrial and academic, with a period of overlap where both communities can exchange information. This meeting will also provide an opportunity for experts from around the world to present their latest research and technological developments in fouling and cleaning strategies. It will involve keynote presentations, technical papers, poster sessions, panel discussions and stands for companies.
Fouling, i.e. the formation of deposits on the heat transfer surfaces, is one of the main problems in the design and operation of heat exchangers in most industries. In most industrial situations, the inefficiency of heat transfer resulting from fouling has a direct link to excess fuel consumption in the process. In addition to the appropriate selection of operating conditions and exchanger geometry, there are numerous chemical and mechanical methods to mitigate fouling and to remove deposits from the heat transfer surfaces. However, all methods to reduce fouling require some understanding of the mechanisms of the deposition process, the structure of the deposits and the factors which govern adhesion to the heat transfer surfaces. Even with optimal design and operation, cleaning of the heat exchanger surfaces eventually becomes necessary. The previous ECI conferences on heat exchanger fouling have mainly focused on the analysis of fouling mechanisms such as crystallization, particulate, biological, reaction and corrosion fouling as well as on the effects of design and operating parameters with respect to formation of deposits. In this conference, an additional focus will be on the cleaning process.
The key themes of Heat Exchanger Fouling and Cleaning VII are: