System and method for treating water circulating in open-circuit cooling systems

• Main Authors: JENS VIER, GIACINTO SFORZA-HEINEN, WOLFGANG SCHMITT, WOLFGANG HATER, NORBERT WREDE, ALFRED WERNER-BUSSE
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 13.03.2001
• Edition: 7
• Subjects: BLASTING; CHEMISTRY; DETAILS OF HEAT-EXCHANGE AND HEAT-TRANSFER APPARATUS, OFGENERAL APPLICATION; HEAT EXCHANGE IN GENERAL; HEATING; LIGHTING; MECHANICAL ENGINEERING; METALLURGY; PERFORMING OPERATIONS; PHYSICAL OR CHEMICAL PROCESSES OR APPARATUS IN GENERAL; SEPARATION; TRANSPORTING; TREATMENT OF WATER, WASTE WATER, SEWAGE, OR SLUDGE; WEAPONS

A water treatment unit having: (a) a cooling tower; (b) a source of cooling water; (c) a main flow pipe for receiving the cooling water; (d) a source of fresh water connected to the source of cooling water; (e) a heat exchanger for heating the cooling water to form heated water; (f) a branched flow pipe for separating the heated water into a main stream of heated water and a partial stream of heated water; (g) a non-backwashable filter capable of separating waste contained in the partial stream of heated water into a compact waste residue and a first filtrate, in the absence of backwashing; and (h) a return pipe for transporting the main filtrate back to the cooling tower, wherein the cooling water is introduced through the main flow pipe into the heat exchanger where it is heated, after which it is split into a main stream of heated water and a partial stream of heated water, the main stream of heated water being transported back to the cooling tower, with the partial stream being transported, by way of the branched flow pipe, into the non-backwashable filter where it is separated into the first filtrate and the compact waste residue, the first filtrate then being transported to the cooling tower through the return pipe.