Waste Water for Power Generation via Energy Efficient Selective Silica Separations

Technical Report · Fri Sep 01 00:00:00 EDT 2017

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1395755· OSTI ID:1395755

Nenoff, Tina M. ^[1]; Brady, Patrick Vane ^[1]; Sasan, Koroush ^[1]; Paap, Scott M. ^[2]; Heimer, Brandon Walter ^[2]; Krumhansl, James L. ^[1]; Howe, Kerry ^[3]; Stoll, Zachary ^[3]; Stomp, James ^[3]

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1. Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
2. Sandia National Lab. (SNL-CA), Livermore, CA (United States)
3. Univ. of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM (United States)

Silica is ubiquitous in produced and industrial waters, and plays a major disruptive role in water recycle. Herein we have investigated the use of mixed oxides for the removal of silica from these waters, and their incorporation into a low cost and low energy water purification process. High selectivity hydrotalcite (HTC, (Mg₆Al₂(OH)₁₆(CO₃)•4H₂O)), is combined in series with high surface area active alumina (AA, (Al₂O₃)) as the dissolved silica removal media. Batch test results indicated that combined HTC/AA is a more effective method for removing silica from industrial cooling tower wasters (CTW) than using HTC or AA separately. The silica uptake via ion exchange on the mixed oxides was confirmed by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), and Energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS). Furthermore, HTC/AA effectively removes silica from CTW even in the presence of large concentrations of competing anions, such as Cl^-, NO₃^- HCO₃^-, CO₃^2- and SO₄^2-. Similar to batch tests, Single Path Flow Through (SPFT) tests with sequential HTC/AA column filtration has very high silica removal too. Technoeconomic Analysis (TEA) was simultaneously performed for cost comparisons to existing silica removal technologies.

• Research Organization: Sandia National Laboratories (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
• DOE Contract Number: AC04-94AL85000; NA0003525
• OSTI ID: 1395755
• Report Number(s): SAND--2017-10324; 657251
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE