Aqua Enviro and I-Phyc Investigate Wastewater Algae Use

Water and wastewater environmental consultancy Aqua Enviro is to carry out an Innovate UK-funded project to investigate the beneficial use of algae grown as part of a wastewater tertiary treatment process.

As part of an Innovate UK grant titled “Commercial use of biomass generated by microalgal treatment of wastewater”, Industrial Phycology (I-Phyc) has commissioned Aqua Enviro to carry out market research in the wastewater and biomass sectors.

Aqua Enviro will carry out the market research to assess the viability and economics of recycling algae generated from wastewater treatment by the I-Phyc patented algae reactor.

In the domestic wastewater market, I-Phyc have been developing an algae reactor to remove phosphorus from wastewater as an alternative to metal ion dosing (commonly Ferric Sulphate) which is the method of choice currently within UK water companies. The reactor is initially targeted at small wastewater treatment works with a domestic population of less than 1000.

The algae reactor has also been successfully used for treatment of domestic wastewaters and wastewaters from fruit juice, tin mining and dairy farming.

The objective of this project is to identify possible markets for algal biomass produced from the treatment of different wastewaters.

Aqua Enviro will aim to investigate uses for the algal biomass which include anaerobic digester feed, fertilisers, pigments, biofuels and biolubricants, animal & fish feed & Omega 3 oils, plastics & foams for commercial products, and bioresins.

Lucie Novoveska, Chief Scientist at I-Phyc said “This is a great opportunity to move towards chemical free wastewater treatment and with the potential to produce a valuable by-product allowing us to approach a more environmentally friendly method of removing phosphorus from wastewater.”

Source: Aqua Enviro

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Taxonomy

• Treatment
• Bioreactor
• Effluent
• Biological Treatment
• Liquid Waste Treatment
• Industrial Wastewater Treatment
• Water Treatment & Control
• Industrial Water Treatment
• Waste Water Treatments
• Algaecides
• Wastewater Treatment
• Industrial Water Treatment
• Industrial Water Reuse
• Industrial Water Managment
• Algae
• Mine Water Management
• Bioreactors & Processes
• Algae Treatment
• Process Machinery
• Dairy Products
• Fluidised Aerobic Bio-Reactor
• Dairy

2 Comments

1. While you are at this, have you considered the toxic effects of algae: blue green algae, and the famous red algae that give us the "Red Tide" that kills a lot of fish.  There are several types of algae that are toxic in different ways: cattle have been killed from drinking from tanks with excessive algae.  Know the species.  Things have changed (a lot) since I did my graduate work in this field and i became involved with Industrial Water.  For 40 years I have been removing PO4 and nitrate/nitrites from water with bacterial to limit the growth of alage - they use the same food source.  An interesting fact in growing the bacteria we use and the algae we don't want is that the pH is a limiting factor for the many algae below about 8.2 and the limiting factor for the bacteria we want above 8.2: the point where P alkalinity starts, and the point that most affects the carbonates and bicarbonates.   On site bioreatctor have been in use for over 40 years with some very good results for growing large amonts of organisms to treat specific application.  The idea is to install growth tanks, specific starter organisms, feed them and watch them grow and reproduct; this lowers the cost of application.  The downside is that because these organisms reporduce rapidly (mine double in population every 15 minutes). they, in the beginning eat everything given to them and do well.  That means that the population is doubled 2,880 times in one month.  Hello evolution: the population has changed and at least 1/2 of the population has gotten lazy and let's Joe over there to the work - why should we work and make more enzymes when Joe can do it.  

   Time to dump the tanks, clean them out and start fresh and purchase pure strains of the organism we want. 

   Good Luck.  But I believe that you will find that most of the objectives of this project will find that the results will be species specific. 

2. All this sounds great, until you ruin someone's entire day with it.  Do be careful not to mess up someone's breakfast cereal here, OK?  Animal and fish feed is one thing.  Recovering omega 3 oils for human  consumption is quite another, and I would expect the authority over such markets to object strenuously.