The Facility
Griffith Energy LLC is a developer of The Griffith Energy Project, a new 520 MW natural gas fired combined cycle facility located 8 miles south of Kingman, Mohave County, Arizona. Black Veatch Corporation of Kansas City, who were engineers for the project, recognized HERO™ as the suitable economical process to deal with the cooling tower blow down, reducing the waste by 90% and thus substituting a thermal brine concentrator at less than half the cost and enormous power saving.
Project Overview
The cooling tower blow down volume was about 230 gpm saturated with silica, high hardness and other constituents. A conventional membrane process cannot function under these conditions due to silica and other organic limitations. A thermal brine concentrator would be cost prohibitive. The permitting of the power plant was based on an evaporation pond. The customer was looking for an economical solution to preconcentrate the blow down and thus have a smaller size evaporation pond.
Scope of Service
HERO™ is a Patented process which addresses the treatment of high silica, organic and bio active feed water and hence treatment of cooling tower blow down enabling recovery and reuse of the blow down water. HERO™ is a membrane process with a modified pre treatment scheme to accommodate high silica concentrations. HERO™ has been successfully tested with silica levels of 2000 PPM in the reject. Wastewater recovery with the HERO™ process is limited only by osmotic pressure. The process is resistant to organic and biological fouling. System recovery of 90 % + is achievable, thus a good substitute for thermal brine concentrator.
Design Water Analysis
Process Flow Diagram
The Plant is 3 x 50% capacity unit thus providing redundancy.
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