XtremeUF Ceramic Ultrafiltration
XtremeUF ceramic ultrafiltration removes oils, grease, precipitated by-products, particulate, microbes, and suspended solids.
Cooling Tower Blowdown
Optimize Cooling Tower Cycles, Increase Water Efficiency, and Treat Blowdown
Saltworks solves cooling tower blowdown challenges. We can help you reduce water usage and protect your assets by treating inlet water or recovering water from blowdown. We study your problem to help you optimize costs, recover water, and explore brine management strategies.
Cooling Tower Blowdown
Cooling towers are widely used in industrial processes to reject heat. As cooling tower water is cycled and evaporated, total dissolved solids (TDS) and scaling ions concentrate, while biological activity may increase.
This accumulation results in the need to periodically ‘blow down’ the cooling tower water and replace it with freshwater. This cooling tower blowdown (CTB) wastewater may require treatment. Permissible blowdown concentrations, without treatment, may be governed by air regulations for saline drift, corrosion limits within the cooling circuit, scaling limits, or sewer discharge limits.
Saltworks can help recover water and maintain these limits. Optimizing cooling towers may involve one or more of the following:
- Chemical additives, including biocides, corrosion inhibitors, and anti-scalants.
- Treat inlet water to reduce chlorides and TDS, enabling greater cooling tower cycles.
- Targeted removal of specific contaminants of concern, such as scaling ions, to enable greater cooling tower cycles.
- Treat cooling tower blowdown to recover freshwater and produce a low-volume brine or even solids.
Treatment Options
In most cases, treating cooling tower inlet water will result in superior economics compared to treating blowdown water, which may include chemical additives and constituents ‘scrubbed’ from the atmosphere. Options include:
- Reduce make-up water chlorides and TDS with XtremeRO: Remove total dissolved solids and chlorides via inlet desalination, maximizing water recovery up to sewer discharge limits or your economic break-even point.
- Remove make-up water scaling ions with BrineRefine: Our automated chemical softening system can selectively remove many scaling species, such as calcium, sulfate, and silica, allowing you to run your tower at higher cycles as a result.
- Treat CTB with Minimal Liquid Discharge (MLD) solutions: Saltworks’ robust MLD membrane systems are designed to protect and preserve membrane health in the face of scaling ion and organic fouling caused by upstream chemical additives.
- Manage brine reject: As water is concentrated, so are the dissolved solids and organics. Saltworks offers brine management options and solutions, including zero liquid discharge systems when warranted.
Get Specific and Analytical
Make-up and cooling tower blowdown water chemistries vary, as do the chemical additive regimes. Saltworks’ team of industrial desalination professionals can review your case and recommend options based on a detailed analytical approach.
Learn more about how to achieve 99% water recovery from cooling tower blowdown from this summary of an award-winning peer-reviewed publication.
Contact us to discuss how your cooling tower performance can be enhanced and to explore increased water recovery and cost trade-offs, or to explore brine management options.
Related Products
BrineRefine Chemical Reactor
BrineRefine is a continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR) that executes diverse chemical reactions efficiently and with precision.
XtremeRO Reverse Osmosis & Nanofiltration
Our XtremeRO and OARO provide industry-leading recovery and reliablity. Concentrate brine, reduce discharge volumes, recover freshwater and more.
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