Nanofiltration (NF) can effectively treat both cooling-tower water and coal-bed methane (CBM) produced waters. NF is an attractive option over conventional reverse osmosis because it requires less power and is less likely to scale. Nanofiltration could help in minimizing water consumption and maximize water usage efficiency of thermoelectric power plants. The power plants could increase the cycles of water recirculation through cooling towers and/or used treated impaired waters. The NF system effectively removed scaling components from cooling-tower recirculating water with an efficiency of > 99% for divalent ions, 78% -95.8% for monovalent ions and almost 90% for silica and from CBM produced water with efficiency greater than 95% for most constituents including silica. In most cases the NF system worked better than predicted by the ROSA™, a manufacturer's desalination software used to design systems and predict how well they will work. Theoretical calculations determined that the total volume of water discharged from cooling towers can be reduced by as much as 75% using the continuous NF process compared to traditional recirculating cooling-tower operation. The total volume of water needed for make up could be reduced by as much as 25%. The cost for NF of cooling-tower water is estimated to be $0.50 -$0.90 per per 1,000 gallons. Before the successful use of a NF system in a cooling tower with similar chemistry of this pilot study, the system and pretreatment system must be designed carefully to control scaling in NF unit. In addition, NF treatment of CBM produced water will likely require a pretreatment system to control parafilms, filming agents, iron flocs, coal fines, and biological growth.
Nanomaterials and nanotechnology methods have been an integral part of international research over the past decade. Because many traditional water treatment technologies (e.g. membrane filtration, biofouling, scale inhibition, etc.) depend on nanoscale processes, it is reasonable to expect one outcome of nanotechnology research to be better, nano-engineered water treatment approaches. The most immediate, and possibly greatest, impact of nanotechnology on desalination methods will likely be the development of membranes engineered at the near-molecular level. Aquaporin proteins that channel water across cell membranes with very low energy inputs point to the potential for dramatically improved performance. Aquaporin-laced polymer membranes and aquaporin-mimicking carbon nanotubes and metal oxide membranes developed in the lab support this. A critical limitation to
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