Water conservation in energy systems: An experimental and theoretical study on recycling evaporated water of cooling towers

Wet cooling towers are one of the most water intensive technologies which are widely used in energy systems. Considering the current water crisis around the world, it is essential to improve the design of these cooling towers to reduce their water consumption while maintaining their cooling performance. Due to the wide use of cooling towers in energy systems it will have a significant impact on reducing water intensity of energy production. Makeup water of cooling tower is usually a constant temperature water which is cold enough to condensate the moisture content of the cooling tower exhaust air. Therefore, it has a great potential to recycle water evaporation of cooling towers, which is not considered so far. This paper investigates a novel design for wet cooling towers utilizing the makeup water to recycle part of evaporated water. To perform a realistic evaluation of this idea, experimental data of a real world cooling tower were measured. Using these data, a dynamic simulation was performed in TRNSYS software to evaluate the water saving potential. The results show that this design will recycle 105 liters water during two0 hours of cooling tower operation. This paper has highlighted the importance of using makeup water in reducing the water consumption of wet cooling towers.

کلیدواژه ها:

Cooling tower ، Water conservation ، Makeup water