Water & Wastewater Treatment Magazine
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14 | MARCH 2017 | WWT | www.wwtonline.co.uk A s one of the key wastewater treatment challenges that utilities currently face, phosphorus removal has been a genuine focus for innovation in the sector in AMP6. A host of tertiary treatment technologies are currently being trialled with the goal Phosphorus removal raises innovation questions To take away 1. The P removal requirements of every wastewater site will be slightly different, so the industry is seeking to develop a basket of new solutions that can be deployed to best fit these requirements in each case. Smaller sites in particular will need low-opex, sustainable solutions. 2. There is considerable scope for catchment management approaches and smarter regulatory permitting regimes to be employed before reaching for end-of-pipe treatment solutions. Brexit may provide greater flexibility in the regulatory regime to pursue this. 3. It is important to look at wastewater treatment holistically and care must be taken that concentrating on reducing one parameter such as P does not lead to other unwanted outcomes, e.g. chemical dosing raising metal levels in the environment. 4. Innovation in the wastewater sector is relatively slow moving and it can take 20 years to fully develop solutions. The industry must find ways of accelerating this to meet its biggest challenges or risk passing the issues on to the next generation. 5. With phosphate rock being a finite and diminishing resource, greater innovation effort should be put into phosphorus recovery rather than just removal, especially in large coastal treatment sites where large quantities of phosphorus end up in the sea. Events Round Table: P Removal and Wastewater Innovation of hitting ambitiously low P consents and helping to bring receiving watercourses to 'good' ecological status under the Water Framework Directive. Meanwhile, innovative catchment management and regulatory approaches are also being pursued which might help achieve similar outcomes in a cost-effective and sustainable way. So what do these challenges reveal about the level and progress of innovation in wastewater – and will market reforms and regulatory change help push industry thinking towards further resource recovery? These were the topics under discussion at WWT's latest round table, Phosphorus Removal and Wastewater Innovation, held in Birmingham on January 30 in association with Tarmac. Severn Trent already has a number of biological P removal plants as well as using chemical dosing for P removal, but the low levels it is now trying to reach means it is now carrying out extensive trials of other technology, according to Peter Vale, Technical Lead for Innovation at Severn Trent. "The technical challenge we face is that we're moving away from the Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive that sets standards of 1mg/l or 2, down to much tighter limits, as low as 0.2mg/l in this AMP," says Vale. "It's much harder to hit those low levels, and it's certainly much more difficult to do it sustainably. So we've been doing a lot of research into more novel technologies that are perhaps capable of hitting the lower standards. Participants get stuck into the discussion at WWT's round table 14 | MARCH 2017 | WWT | www.wwtonline.co.uk Events Round Table: P Removal and Wastewater Innovation