It is of great importance to obtain the exact location and severity of slagging deposits on the waterwall surface of an operational boiler to avoid aimless soot-blowing and reduce steam consumption. In this paper, an effective waterwall surface temperature monitoring method is proposed to determine the slagging locations. It has been noted that the temperature difference of the waterwall surface before and after soot-blowing varied with the waterwall location, with more than 80 °C covered with slag and less than 20 °C found clean. According to this, a slagging temperature index was developed to describe the severity of slagging deposits on the waterwall surface. Results indicated that the process of slagging deposit growth included four stages, with the slagging temperature fluctuating in the range of about 90–110 °C in stage III, followed by a rapid drop below 60 °C in stage IV. Furthermore, a digital image monitoring system was used to validate the slag growth process and study the relationship between deposit thickness growth and area expansion. This novel approach provides automated and accurate guidance for each soot blower around the furnace, which reduces soot-blowing steam consumption and avoids serious slagging on the waterwall surface.

Durable elastomeric deicing coatings were developed for the anti-icing and deicing of wind turbine blades in this study. Our developed deicing coatings demonstrated extremely low ice adhesion strength (~15 kPa). Silica was added to enhance the icephobic surfaces’ durability. The life of the deicing coating with silica was extended by 1.2 times. After 168 h of xenon lamp irradiation, there were no significant changes in the chemical composition of the coatings. Due to the increasing roughness and the decreasing tensile modulus, the contact angle of the aged coatings decreased by 14°. Further outdoor research was carried out on a wind farm for two months to investigate the influence of natural insolation and wind erosion on the elastic deicing coatings. The aged coating still maintained a high hydrophobicity and low ice adhesion strength. The contact angle stabilized at 107°, and the ice adhesion strength was 75% lower than that of the uncoated wind turbine blade. The elastomeric deicing coatings had three advantages: a lagging freezing time, low ice accumulation, and a short icing/deicing cycle. The results of field experiments on the naturally aged coatings showed that the freezing time of the coated blade was delayed by 20 min, and the ice on the coated blade was 29% thinner than that on the uncoated blade.