Power plants draw more freshwater than any other consumer in the US, accounting for more than 50 percent of the nation’s freshwater use at about 500 billion gallons daily.
To help save this water, researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have developed a new silica filter for power plant cooling waters that decreases the number of freshwater power plants consume by increasing the number of times cooling tower water can be reused and recycled.
“If you can recycle the water being used at power plants, it frees up a lot more water for domestic and personal use,” said Sandia geochemist Pat Brady.
While power plants already recycle freshwater, the number of times a batch of water can be reused is limited by the amount of silica that builds up with each cycle. Silica is a common, naturally occurring substance in freshwater with limited solubility and is prone to forming scales on turbines, boilers, heat exchangers, transfer pipes and other equipment. The cost to treat and recycle water used at power plants is estimated to be 1.5 to 2 times the cost of freshwater, often because of the high price of current silica removal methods.
“Our project is focused on finding an energy- and cost-efficient material and process to remove silica from industrial water,” said Sandia chemist Tina Nenoff.
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