Patent ID: 9617173
Date: 2017-04-11
CPC Classifications: C02F

Claim:
1. A method for improving efficiency of a water-containing industrial process, the method comprising: feeding energy-rich process water or energy-rich process water filtrate formed by filtering energy-rich process water to a membrane distillation unit, thereby creating a membrane distillate and an energy-rich aqueous liquid; purifying the energy-rich aqueous liquid using a salinated liquid as a draw stream in a forward osmosis unit, thereby creating a diluted stream; preliminarily purifying a stream comprising at least one of the energy-rich aqueous liquid and the diluted stream using a technique selected from the group consisting of: reverse osmosis, ion exchange, water softening, and combinations thereof, thereby creating purified water; feeding the purified water and the membrane distillate into at least one heated thermal industrial water system.