Feasibility of recovering useful salts from irrigation wastewater concentrates produced by power plant cooling. Research report

Technical Report · Sat Mar 01 04:00:00 EST 1980

OSTI ID:6617680

Sephton, H H

The report evaluates the feasibility of a novel energy-conserving way to recover useful salts (sodium sulfate and calcium sulfate) from concentrated brines by evaporation/crystallization. The concentrated brines examined were cooling tower blowdown from towers using agricultural wastewater as the coolant. This blowdown is further concentrated and used in ion exchange regeneration. Laboratory and pilot tests were made with both conventional evaporation/crystallization and interface-enhanced, vertical-tube foam evaporation which increases evaporation. Sodium sulfate and calcium sulfate recovery provides potential capital cost savings, about $2 million for a 1000-MWe power plant. Sale of these products is an added incentive to their recovery. The use of foamy vapor/liquid flow on the evaporating brine/crystal slurry enhanced heat transfer by up to 40% and enabled concurrent energy reductions of 28%, compared to conventional evaporation/crystallization of sodium sulfate in a 5000-gpd vapor-compression vertical-tube evaporation pilot plant. Consequently, the use of agricultural wastewater for power plant cooling in the San Joaquin Valley with ion exchange for pre-softening and wastewater regeneration solely with concentrated brine from blowdown appears technically feasible and economically attractive.

• Research Organization: California Univ., Berkeley (USA). Sea Water Conversion Lab.
• OSTI ID: 6617680
• Report Number(s): PB-80-187966
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

20 FOSSIL-FUELED POWER PLANTS
200101 -- Fossil-Fueled Power Plants-- Cooling & Heat Transfer Equipment & Systems
32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION
320205* -- Energy Conservation
Consumption
& Utilization-- Transportation-- Pipeline
AGRICULTURAL WASTES
ALKALI METAL COMPOUNDS
ALKALINE EARTH METAL COMPOUNDS
BRINES
CALCIUM COMPOUNDS
CALCIUM SULFATES
COOLANTS
COOLING TOWERS
CRYSTALLIZATION
DEMINERALIZATION
DESALINATION
DESIGN
ECONOMIC ANALYSIS
ECONOMICS
EVAPORATION
FEASIBILITY STUDIES
FUNCTIONAL MODELS
HYDROGEN COMPOUNDS
IRRIGATION
LIQUID WASTES
MANAGEMENT
MATERIALS RECOVERY
ORGANIC WASTES
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
PHASE TRANSFORMATIONS
PILOT PLANTS
POLLUTION CONTROL
POWER PLANTS
PROCESSING
RECOVERY
RECYCLING
SALTS
SEPARATION PROCESSES
SODIUM COMPOUNDS
SODIUM SULFATES
SULFATES
SULFUR COMPOUNDS
THERMAL POWER PLANTS
WASTE MANAGEMENT
WASTE PROCESSING
WASTE WATER
WASTES
WATER