NOTE: The sponsor of this content may contact you with more information on this topic. Click here to opt-out from sharing your email address with this sponsor. (This link will not unsubscribe you from any other BIC email list).
Next-generation chemistry for safer, faster and more efficient heat transfer equipment maintenance
In power generation facilities, scale is more than a maintenance issue. It’s efficiency issue, a reliability issue, and ultimately a profitability issue.
Engineers understand that even thin layers of calcium carbonate and mineral scale dramatically reduce heat transfer efficiency. The result is increased fuel consumption, higher operating costs, elevated equipment temperatures, and longer maintenance outages.
For decades, facilities have relied on aggressive acids to restore heat exchanger performance. While effective, these chemistries come with significant tradeoffs: hazardous handling procedures, specialized transportation requirements, corrosion concerns, storage risks, and increasing environmental scrutiny.
Today, those compromises are no longer necessary.
ScaleBreak®-000 represents a breakthrough in industrial descaling chemistry, delivering the cleaning performance engineers demand while fundamentally changing the safety and environmental profile of chemical descaling.
Why Descaling Chemistry Matters
Every engineer understands the relationship between scale buildup and thermal performance.
As deposits accumulate inside condensers, feedwater heaters, cooling systems, boilers, and auxiliary heat exchangers, thermal resistance increases rapidly. Even relatively small amounts of scale force equipment to work harder to achieve the same heat transfer.
Facilities often experience:
- Reduced heat transfer efficiency
- Increased fuel consumption
- Higher condenser backpressure
- Increased pumping requirements
- Longer equipment runtimes
- Reduced generating capacity
- Increased maintenance costs
Removing mineral deposits is essential but historically, selecting the right chemical has required balancing cleaning performance against safety, environmental impact, and operational complexity.
The traditional compromise
Industrial strength descalers have traditionally followed one rule:
The more aggressive the chemistry is, the greater the operational risk.
For maintenance teams, that often means:
- Hazardous material shipping
- Extensive PPE requirements
- Increased employee training
- Storage restrictions
- Disposal considerations
- Longer EHS approval processes
These factors don't improve cleaning they simply make maintenance more complicated.
A new generation of industrial descaling
ScaleBreak-000 was engineered to challenge that assumption.
Rather than relying on aggressive acid descalers that deliver the wanted cleaning performance but introducing additional safety, handling, disposal and logistical challenges, ScaleBreak®-000 combines high-performance mineral scale removal with one of the safest industrial chemical profiles available. It removes calcium carbonate and mineral scale up to 2× faster than muriatic acid while carrying an HMIS 0-0-0 rating, indicating no significant health, flammability, or reactivity hazards. ScaleBreak-000 has even been proven non-corrosive to skin and is OECD404, GLP-validated. (just asking, should we add this?)
This combination fundamentally changes how facilities can approach planned maintenance.
Instead of viewing descaling as a hazardous operation requiring extensive logistical planning, maintenance teams can focus on what matters most: restoring equipment performance and returning assets to service faster.
Engineered for today's power plants
Modern generating stations are operating under increasing pressure to improve reliability, reduce emissions, optimize maintenance budgets, and maximize equipment availability.
ScaleBreak-000 supports these goals through several key advantages.
Faster cleaning performance
Laboratory testing demonstrated calcium carbonate dissolution rates up to 2× faster than muriatic acid, helping reduce cleaning cycles and shorten maintenance outages. For outage managers, even modest reductions in maintenance duration can translate into meaningful cost savings.
Improved safety profile
Unlike conventional descalers, ScaleBreak-000 features:
- HMIS 0-0-0
- Non-toxic formulation
- Non-corrosive to skin (OECD404, GLP-validated)
- No significant health hazards
- 100% VOC free
These characteristics can simplify maintenance planning while reducing concerns associated with chemical handling and storage.
Simplified logistics
Chemical procurement often introduces unnecessary complexity into outage planning.
ScaleBreak-000 eliminates many of those challenges by shipping as standard freight.
Facilities benefit from being U.S. DOT & Canadian TDG non-regulated:
- No hazardous material shipping fees
- No carrier restrictions
- Easier transportation
- Simplified inventory management
This allows plants to minimize additional fees and shipping challenges often associated with other chemical profiles.
Environmental responsibility without sacrificing performance
Minimizing the environmental impact has become an increasingly important objective throughout the power industry.
ScaleBreak-000 supports those initiatives through a formulation that is:
- 100% biodegradable in just 10 days
- VOC-free
- Evaluated using EPA Whole Effluent Toxicity (WET) methods
- Safe for potable water systems NSF/ANSI/CAN60 & NSF A8 certified
Unlike many traditional chemistries, the active descaling components are consumed as they react with mineral deposits, naturally changing the solution throughout the cleaning process.
Certifications for critical infrastructure
Power generation facilities require confidence that maintenance chemicals meet demanding operational standards.
ScaleBreak-000 carries certifications and approvals including:
- HMIS 0-0-0
- NSF/ANSI/CAN 60
- NSF A8
- FDA GRAS
- NAVSEA Approval
- WET Toxicity Testing: Independent EPA-method acute freshwater & saltwater testing
These certifications demonstrate suitability for demanding industrial applications where safety and compliance cannot be compromised.
Maximizing results with the Goodway ScaleBreak PulseFlo™ descaling systems
Even the most advanced descaling chemistry performs best when paired with equipment engineered to maximize chemical effectiveness.
Goodway's new ScaleBreak PulseFlo™ GDS descaling pump systems were designed specifically to improve circulation efficiency, simplify operation, and accelerate industrial descaling projects.
ScaleBreak PulseFlo clean-in-place chemical pump systems simplify and improve cleaning performance with their innovative flow-reversal system that allows operators to instantly reverse circulation without disconnecting hoses from the equipment. This helps evacuate gases and foam generated during descaling while exposing fresh chemistry to scale deposits, improving cleaning efficiency, and reducing operator intervention.
The PulseFlo family includes system sized for virtually every application:
Compact and portable for smaller closed-loop systems and heat exchangers.
Designed for medium-volume systems such as auxiliary heat exchangers, boilers, and process loops where higher flow rates improve cleaning performance.
A portable industrial system combining high circulation rates with exceptional maneuverability for medium to large volume applications throughout the plant.
Built for large-volume industrial descaling applications, the GDS-400 delivers up to 95 GPM through large-diameter hoses, making it ideal for condensers, large shell-and-tube heat exchangers, and other high-volume systems commonly found in power generation facilities. Its corrosion-resistant construction, 50-gallon vented tank, and user-friendly controls make it well suited for demanding outage environments.
When paired with ScaleBreak-000, these systems create a complete descaling solution that combines advanced chemistry with optimized circulation, helping maintenance teams complete cleaning projects faster while maximizing chemical utilization.
The future of industrial descaling
As utilities continue to focus on operational excellence, the maintenance of technologies supporting critical assets must evolve alongside them.
Chemical descaling should no longer require choosing between cleaning performance, worker safety, environmental responsibility, and operational efficiency.
ScaleBreak-000 demonstrates that industrial-strength descaling chemistry can deliver all four.
For engineers responsible for maintaining peak thermal performance, reducing outage duration, simplifying maintenance logistics, and improving workplace safety, the next generation of industrial descaling has arrived.
ScaleBreak®-000 isn't simply a safer descaler. It's a fundamentally better approach to restoring heat transfer performance for the modern power plant.
Learn more about ScaleBreak-000
