The fouling of heat exchangers, reactors and catalysts remains one of the most urgent problems facing the process industries. Over the past ten years there has been limited research and investigation into the underlying mechanisms which give rise to this problem. For convenience, particularly in heat exchanger technology, the mechanisms involved have been subdivided into different subject areas. It is often the situation that individuals or groups of workers have concentra- ted efforts in one or two of these specialist areas and there is a need to integrate the ideas across the whole spectrum...

This unique and comprehensive text considers all aspects of heat exchanger fouling from the basic science of how surfaces become fouled to very practical ways of mitigating the problem and from mathematical modelling of different fouling mechanisms to practical methods of heat exchanger cleaning. The problems that restrict the efficient operation of equipment are described and the costs, some of them hidden costs, that are associated with the fouling of heat exchangers are discussed. Some simple concepts and models of the fouling processes are presented as part of the introduction to the...