What is Zero Liquid Discharge & Why is it Important?
November 16, 2017
Zero liquid discharge (ZLD) is an engineering approach to water treatment where all water is recovered and contaminants are reduced to solid waste.
Geothermal Water Treatment
Manage scalants, corrosion, and blowdown
Geothermal heat is used in many countries to provide clean renewable heating or electricity. Saltworks can help geothermal operators maintain plant performance and improve economics with a variety of advanced membrane, chemical, and thermal solutions.
GEOTHERMAL
WATER TREATMENT
EVAPORATORS & CRYSTALLIZERS
REVERSE OSMOSIS CONCENTRATORS
REDUCE DISPOSAL
COSTS
Geothermal Waters
Geothermal systems come in many forms but generally, they circulate a fluid underground to collect heat. The water is then circulated above ground where it can provide heating, and if the temperature is high enough, drive a turbine for electricity generation. When power is produced, a cold sink is required often employing cooling towers.
Geothermal wastewater challenges may occur when wells are first drilled (managing the initial slug of underground saline water) or within the operational closed-loop (managing scale forming by-products), or in the cooling tower circuit. Ensuring cost-effective water treatment will help maintain geothermal plant efficiency.
Saltworks can help geothermal operators reduce salinity and treat other contaminants-of-concern with a selection of chemical, thermal, membrane, and ion specific sensor technologies.
Target Scaling & Corrosive Species
To protect geothermal heat and power circuits, scaling and corrosive species may need to be removed:
Treat chlorides and scaling ions with FlexEDR Selective: removes scaling ions or chlorides with an electrodialysis reversal (EDR) kidney loop.
Measure and Target silica with ScaleSense and SilicaSelect: ScaleSense measures silica and other scaling ions in real-time while low footprint SilicaSelect removes silica, producing a small solid filter cake for ease of disposal.
Remove scaling ions with BrineRefine: our automated chemical softening system selectively removes many scaling species including calcium, sulfate, and silica.
Manage Blowdown and Water Use
If disposal options are limited for geothermal well and cooling tower blowdown fluids, minimal or zero liquid discharge may be the best approach.
Boost cooling tower cycles and minimize blowdown with our XtremeRO ultra-high recovery or FlexEDR ‘chloride kidney’ membrane cooling tower blowdown systems.
Treat geothermal well blowdown with our SaltMaker family of evaporators and crystallizers.
Lithium, Cooling & More Geothermal Solutions
Some geothermal operators are investigating the extraction of lithium from their geothermal brines. Saltworks brings considerable expertise to lithium projects.
Others may have cooling tower blowdown challenges, which we can also help with.
To investigate your geothermal project’s treatment options, contact our expert team.
Geothermal Water Treatment Related Products
BrineRefine Chemical Softening System
Smart, compact, modular chemical system that reduces costs with precise dosing and built-in solids management. Improves recovery & minimizes fouling risk with intelligent controls that communicate with downstream assets, like RO or evaporators.
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SaltMaker AirBreather Evaporator Crystallizer
The first evaporator-crystallizer with no atmospheric contact, important for water with volatile organics. Choose between no liquid water return or clean water that is safe for discharge.
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SaltMaker MultiEffect Evaporator Crystallizer
Modern, modular, and intelligently automated evaporator-crystallizer that concentrates brine or produces low volume solids for zero liquid discharge.
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XtremeUF Ceramic Ultrafiltration System
An ultra-robust ceramic based ultrafilter that can remove suspended solids, oils, and grease from the most challenging slurries & impacted wastewaters. XtremeUF cleans as it operates, to ensure your membranes maintain performance.
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Geothermal Water Treatment Related Resources
Lithium Brine Extraction Technologies & Approaches
June 8, 2018
Recovering lithium in evaporation ponds can take a year or more and leaves behind lots of salt waste, but there are new technologies and processes that offer exciting options for lithium extraction.
Disposal Wells
April 13, 2020
Saltworks reduces fluid volume by treating it with a range of solutions and products, depending on your needs. Upon mixing, some waters pose a risk of precipitating and plugging active disposal wells. We can protect disposal wells from plugging with our real-time sensors, by detecting incompatible wastewaters and preventing co-mingling.
99% Membrane System Recovery on Scaling Cooling Tower Blowdown
November 16, 2020
Reverse osmosis-based brine concentrators are reaching new performance levels not seen before. Saltworks is pleased to report that a substantial pilot plant is currently demonstrating 99% freshwater recovery on cooling tower blowdown (CTB).