METHOD FOR TREATMENT AND REUSE OF USED WATER STREAMS

摘要

Methods for recovering energy and water from at least one energy-rich process water stream are provided. The methods optionally incorporate the use of filtration, reverse osmosis, ion exchange, water softening, forward osmosis, and membrane distillation. The methods can be used to recover energy and water from blowdown or condensate from a water-containing industrial process, which in certain embodiments may be a boiler system.

主权项

1. A method for improving efficiency of a water-containing industrial process, the method comprising:
providing an energy-rich process water stream; optionally filtering the energy-rich process water stream, thereby creating an energy-rich process water filtrate stream; feeding the energy-rich process water stream or the energy-rich process water filtrate stream to a membrane distillation unit, wherein the membrane distillation unit comprises at least one membrane creating a heated side and a non-heated side within the membrane distillation unit, and the energy-rich process water stream or the energy-rich process water filtrate stream contacts the heated side of the at least one membrane, thereby creating a membrane distillate stream and an energy-rich aqueous liquid; optionally feeding a salinated stream and the energy-rich aqueous liquid into a forward osmosis unit, wherein the forward osmosis unit comprises at least one membrane creating a first side and a second side within the forward osmosis unit, and the salinated stream is fed to the first side, and the energy-rich aqueous liquid is fed into the second side, thereby creating a concentrated stream and a diluted stream; preliminarily purifying a stream comprising at least one of the energy-rich aqueous liquid and the diluted stream using a technique selected from the group consisting of: reverse osmosis, ion exchange, water softening, and combinations thereof, thereby creating a purified makeup water stream; feeding the purified makeup water stream and the membrane distillate stream into at least one heated thermal industrial water system.