In thermal power plants, the cooling tower blowdown (CTBD) water represents a substantial amount of wastewater generated, whose recyclability holds the potential of enormous water savings. However, silica in reactive and colloidal form is a major contaminant, with inefficient removals by existing treatment technologies that prevent CTBD water reuse. The present work illustrates a sustainable approach for simultaneous silica removal and biogenic silica production from CTBD water of a thermal power plant. The 3 L attached biofilm reactor, inoculated with enriched diatom consortium ‘D’ (Navicula vilaplanii and Denticula subtilis) was utilized for treatment. D consortium efficiently removed both reactive (66.76%) and colloidal silica (83.05%) below the make-up water desired limit, and gave high biomass productivity (2.21± 0.17 g m ^− 2d⁻¹). Also, a reduction of 91.84% total dissolved phosphorous, 69.61% nitrate nitrogen, 48.4% chemical oxygen demand, and 15.38% total dissolved solids were achieved. On downstream processing of D consortium biomass, 52.4% frustules, 19.6% lipid, 11.9% protein, and 8.2% carbohydrates were recovered per diatom cell weight. The extracted frustules were found to be negatively charged, symmetrical pennate-shaped, robust, mesoporous structures composed of SiO₂ with wide nanotechnological applications. Projection analysis of the proposed biofilm process for a 500 MW power plant illustrated 1485 million liters of water-saving along with 57 tonnes of frustules, 22 tonnes of lipid, and 13.2 tonnes of protein production annually. This diatom based biofilm technology can provide a paradigm shift in blowdown water management practices and help build a fresh ‘waste to wealth’ industrial perspective.

在火力发电厂中，冷却塔排污（CTBD）水代表着大量废水的产生，其可循环利用性具有节水潜力。但是，反应性和胶体形式的二氧化硅是主要污染物，现有的处理技术无法有效去除CTBD中的水，因此去除效率不高。本工作说明了从火力发电厂的CTBD水中同时去除二氧化硅和生产生物二氧化硅的可持续方法。3 L附着的生物膜反应器，接种了富集的硅藻财团“ D”（Navicula vilaplanii和Denticula subtilis））用于治疗。D财团有效地去除了补充水所需极限以下的反应性（66.76％）和胶态二氧化硅（83.05％），并获得了高生物质生产率（2.21±0.17 g m  ^{-  2} d ^-1）。同样，减少了91.84％的总溶解磷，69.61％的硝酸盐氮，48.4％的化学需氧量和15.38％的总溶解固体。在D财团生物质的下游加工中，每硅藻细胞重量回收了52.4％的果壳，19.6％的脂质，11.9％的蛋白质和8.2％的碳水化合物。发现提取的壳为带负电荷的，对称的笔形，坚固，介孔结构，由SiO ₂组成具有广泛的纳米技术应用。对一家500 MW电厂拟议的生物膜工艺的投影分析表明，每年可节水14.85亿升，同时生产57吨壳糖，22吨脂质和13.2吨蛋白质。这种基于硅藻的生物膜技术可以为排污水管理实践提供范式转变，并有助于建立崭新的“从废物到财富”的工业视角。