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

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）二期项目的更广泛的影响和商业潜力是在发电厂和其他工业设施中节省大量的水，每年在美国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，降低这些设施的运营费用，并提高发电的可靠性。每台设备每年可节省数百万美元，在美国的市场机会估计约为40亿美元。此外，这项技术可用于从使用废水或海水的冷却塔中收集的水进行升级回收，有可能生产出供商业和家庭使用的纯蒸馏水。该SBIR二期项目提出了一种针对冷却塔羽流的水捕获技术。所提出的技术利用电场使冷却塔出口周围的空气电离，对从冷却塔流出的水充电，并将其引导到基于网格的收集器，最终引导到冷却塔外围的收集罐。第二阶段的建议包括系统的实验研究，以优化实际部署的收集设置，以及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，包括设计用于与现有系统兼容的控制面板。从试验装置中收集的收集效率、水质和功耗数据将用于迭代和改进设计。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值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.