Oasys Water announced the completion of a ClearFlo MBCx system demonstration at the Water Research Center near Cartersville, Ga., a collaborative test facility developed through a broad industry partnership including Southern Co. and its subsidiary Georgia Power, the Southern Research Institute, and the Electric Power Research Institute.
The project demonstrated a fully integrated MBCx system, including pretreatment, membrane pre-concentration and forward osmosis (FO) for brine concentration. The MBCx provided continuous treatment of FGD wastewater generated at the plant to fresh water recovery levels of 90% and more.
The MBCx demonstration system is the next generation of Oasys’ commercial scale system commissioned last year in China, at Huaneng Power Group’s Changxing coal fired power plant, as part of a ZLD treatment system for FGD scrubber effluent and which is currently being deployed at several additional Chinese projects with partner Beijing Woteer.
The goal of the Water Research Center campaign was to demonstrate the effectiveness of Oasys’ technology for the U.S. power industry in meeting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) new Effluent Limitation Guidelines (ELGs) for existing FGD wastewater. The Oasys MBCx demonstration system treated an average of 5 gpm of FGD effluent and recovered 90% to 95% as clean, reusable water, fully meeting EPA’s ELG limits (existing source, new source and voluntary incentive program) for arsenic, selenium, mercury and nitrates. Concentrated brine total dissolved solids (TDS) levels exceeded demonstration targets, at 250,000 mg/L or higher. Recovered brine will be used in other research on solidification of FGD brine in combination with other power plant combustion byproducts for safe disposal as solid waste.
“The U.S. coal fired power industry has a massive hurdle ahead in adding FGD scrubber effluent treatment capabilities to plants that were retrofitted earlier this decade with required sulfur emissions reduction technology,” said Oasys President and CEO Jim Matheson. “Oasys’ MBCx provides power plant operators an innovative, high-performance alternative to treat, concentrate and reuse these difficult wastewater streams.”
Oasys offers the ClearFlo MBCx for near-ZLD, as well as a fully integrated ClearFlo CompleteTM solution for full-ZLD wastewater effluent treatment, to customers in the U.S. and global power industry and to other industrial market segments worldwide, where fresh water recovery for reuse is an important part of customers’ overall water management strategies. Technical evaluation tools, pilot demonstrations, and system proposals are available from Oasys and its partners to help customers determine feasibility and engineer solutions meeting the requirements of specific plants and applications.
Source: Oasys Water
