Additional Wastewater Solutions for Natural Gas

Raw Water Treatment / Cooling Tower Makeup

A combined cycle natural gas station needs to make demineralized water for steam makeup.  In almost all cases, water is also needed for cooling tower makeup.  In many cases, the source water (river, lake or well) will require some treatment before use. In many cases, this is simple clarification with or without filtration.

Lime Soda Softening

It is always advantageous to operate cooling towers at higher cycles of concentration to conserve water.  In many cases, this reuse is limited by the quality of the influent water such as high influent hardness.  In these cases, lime soda softening can really improve the water balance at the station.  This can also remove silica and improve the efficiency of the demineralized water equipment.  In some cases it may be more advantageous to perform this treatment on a sidestream from the tower resulting in a smaller capacity system that achieves the same results as a larger capacity system on the raw water influent.

Demineralized Water Treatment

All combined cycle plants need demineralized water to produce steam.  In most cases this means two pass reverse osmosis with polishing via mixed bed ion exchange or EDI.  In many cases, this equipment is straightforward and fairly standard, but in some cases there site specific challenges such as poor influent quality, limits on overall system recovery, etc.  UCC has the capabilities and experience to surmount these challenges.

Dewatering

All of the water treatment systems mentioned above will require some sort of dewatering – plate and frame filter presses, centrifuges, belt presses, etc.  UCC is very familiar with this equipment and excels at selecting the correct technology for the application.

Overall Site Water Balance Optimization Reuse, ZLD

Industry has begun to realize that water should not simply be divided into ‘influent’ and ‘effluent’ but should be considered as a resource be managed and minimized throughout the facility.  An overall site water balance can be used to track water quality as it flows through the facility.  Such a tool is helpful in identifying opportunities for reuse.  There are a number of combined cycle natural gas plants that operate without discharging at all – Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD).  This is achieved by aggressively reusing water and eliminating the remainder via evaporation – solar or thermal (steam/electric).

Balance of Plant and Turnkey Execution

While most projects include only the design and supply of process equipment, UCC also has the capability to provide additional services.  We can also provide balance of plant engineering services – interconnecting platforms, piping, electrical, etc.  In many cases, UCC can take this even further and install the supplied equipment for a full turnkey project.  With these additional capabilities, UCC is definitely a full service integrated solution provider for water and wastewater treatment.