SBIR Phase II: Enhanced Water Recovery at the Energy-Water Nexus: Towards Water-Efficient Cooling Systems

这个小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第二阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是在发电厂和其他工业设施节省大量水，在美国每年可能节省数千亿加仑的水。这将有助于减少发电和其他冷却应用的水足迹，减少这些设施的运营费用，并提高发电的可靠性。每个设施每年可节省数百万美元，美国的市场机会估计约为4B美元。此外，这项技术可用于从使用废水或海水的冷却塔收集的水进行升级，潜在地生产商业和家庭使用的纯蒸馏水。这个SBIR第二阶段项目提议推进冷却塔羽流的水捕获技术。这项拟议的技术使用电场来电离冷却塔出口周围的空气，对从冷却塔流出的水进行充电，并将其引导到基于网状的收集器，最终到达冷却塔外围的收集器。第二阶段的建议既包括为现实世界部署优化收集装置的系统实验研究，也包括材料选择和耐久性研究。该项目将优化设计并建立一个试点系统，包括一个为与现有系统兼容而设计的控制面板。从试点设施收集的收集效率、水质和能耗的数据将用于迭代和改进设计。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project is to save significant amounts of water at power plants and other industrial facilities, potentially saving hundreds of billions of gallons of water every year in the US. This will help reduce the water footprint of power generation and other cooling applications, reduce operating expenses for these facilities, and increase the reliability of power generation. The annual savings can be several millions of dollars per facility and the market opportunity in the US is estimated at around $4 B. Furthermore, this technology can be used for upcycling the captured water from cooling towers that use wastewater or seawater, potentially producing pure distilled water for commercial and domestic use.This SBIR Phase II project proposes to advance a water capture technology for cooling tower plumes. The proposed technology uses electric fields to ionize the air around a cooling tower outlet, charge the water escaping cooling towers, and direct it toward a mesh-based collector and ultimately a collection tank on the periphery of the cooling tower. The Phase II proposal includes both systematic experimental studies to optimize the collection setup for real-world deployment, as well as material choice and durability studies. This project will optimize the design and build a pilot system, including a control panel designed for compatibility with existing systems. Data collected from the pilot installation on collection efficiency, water quality, and power consumption will be used to iterate and improve the design.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.