WASHINGTON, Oct. 25, 2017 - A new silica filter, developed at Sandia National Laboratories, will allow power plants to reuse and recycle fresh water employed in the cooling process at a greater rate. These facilities currently account for half of the nation’s water consumption at 500 billion gallons daily. “We have a limited amount of water in this country to use for everything from drinking water to raising livestock, and global population and demand is growing,” said Sandia geochemist Pat Brady. “If you can recycle the water being used at power plants, it frees up a lot more water for domestic and personal use.” While power plants already recycle freshwater, the number of times a batch of water can be reused is limited by the amount of silica that builds up with each cycle. Sandia hopes the filter will allow water to be used 10 or more cycles as compared to two or three uses currently.
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