**4. Summary and Conclusions**

The maximal water use efficiency of recirculating wet cooling towers in thermal power production typically depends on feed water composition. Application of MCDI on CT feed water for desalination to increase CT cycles and improve water use efficiency is evaluated in this paper. The combined MCDI-CT process is studied using lab test data following a response surface methodology and mass balancing. Impacts on cooling tower performance and acid consumption are evaluated on pilot scale. The following main conclusions are drawn:


**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, W.D.S., C.V. and J.H.; data curation, J.H.; formal analysis, W.D.S. and C.V.; investigation, C.V. and J.H.; methodology, W.D.S. and C.V.; project administration, W.D.S. and H.H.; writing—original draft, W.D.S.; writing—review and editing, H.H. and J.H. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research was funded by The Horizon 2020 program gran<sup>t</sup> number 686031 through the project "Materials and Technologies for Performance Improvement of Cooling Systems in Power Plants (acronym MATChING)".

**Acknowledgments:** Diane Van Houtven and Ben Jacobs are gratefully acknowledged for their help and discussions.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest
