TP22-13: Plume Abatement and Water Savings in Cooling Towers

Industrial cooling towers are one of the largest sources of freshwater consumption in the
US. As towers discharge water vapor, additional make-up water is needed to replace
evaporation and blowdown losses. The discharged water vapor also partly condenses and
forms visible plumes that can pose safety, reliability, and public relations issues.
In this work, we demonstrate a novel plume capture technology that uses electric fields to
collect the water content of the plumes, resulting in plume abatement and water savings.
We also show that the recovered water has low conductivity and a low concentration of
contaminants compared to the basin water. We finally report experimental results from
large-scale installations on operating power plant cooling towers.