Water and Effluent Treatment Magazine
Issue link: https://fhpublishing.uberflip.com/i/236238
| Sewage tReatment Revolutionising wastewater treatment A technology that can provide energy and cost savings at wastewater treatment plants is being trialled in Denmark. it is also being backed by the eu, which has awarded a €1M grant. A revolutionAry Danish invention for wastewater treatment is helping to make traditional plants up to 25 times more efficient as well as reduce costs by up to 40 % through substantial energy savings. The new system enables plants to produce industrially exploitable fertiliser by accumulating ammonium. The invention has been under development for years, but there has recently been a breakthrough − the project has been granted €1M from the EU for further development and research. Technology enabling wastewater treatment plants to separate ammonium during the treatment process has been in use since the 1940s, but the new invention allows for up to 90 % of the ammonium content to be collected and heated up, producing a fertiliser that can be applied for industrial or agricultural purposes. The project is "unique", because there are amazing perspectives in it, not only environmentally, but also socio-economically. The fact that the EU has granted the project such a large amount of money shows that it is worth investing in, and that we are talking about a technology that may in the long term completely revolutionise the way we treat water, says project consultant Catharina Vinther Engqvist from the North Denmark EUOffice. She has played an important role in writing the application for the EU, Wastewater can become a resource while saving energy 16 | WET News | January 2014 up to 90% of ammonia can be collected and heated up to produce fertiliser and thereby procuring the money for the project. 'Fine tune' The €1M that the so-called NUTREC project has been granted from the EU will be used to "fine-tune" the plant in order to optimise reliability and efficiency. The plant is expected to be marketed as soon as 2014 under the name GAAR 15 from GreenAqua Solutions, and the partners in the project are already negotiating with interested buyers – plants that are interested in optimising their wastewater treatment processes with a system from GreenAqua Solutions. The system is also expected to soon be exported to other European countries such as Germany, which already has a well functioning structure for wastewater treatment. Last month, a team of scientists from German research institute Fraunhofer and The Danish Knowledge Centre for Agriculture as well as partners from Germany, Portugal and Spain gathered in Hobro in Denmark, where the future research and development of the project was discussed. The visit also included a demonstration of a full scale pilot system. Karsten Poulsen, inventor, patented his system for biologically separating ammonium from wastewater 15 years ago, but has recently developed a method whereby the ammonium can be collected instead of released as nitrogen. In principle, a CO2 neutral wastewater treatment process is thereby achieved. By using this method, we can turn the wastewater into a resource while saving energy, chemicals and costs related to the treatment process. In traditional treatment plants, the ammonium is usually reduced to nitrogen that is sent back into the air, explains Poulsen.