SBIR Phase II: Further development of the HAOPs water treatment process for membrane pretreatment and phosphorus recovery from wastewater

这项小型企业创新研究（SBIR）第二阶段项目的更广泛影响和商业潜力源于一种新型水处理工艺的进步，该工艺可以减少膜污染并显著降低水处理成本。膜过滤是解决全球水资源短缺问题的主要水处理技术之一。然而，膜工业面临着由污染引起的低生产率和高运行成本。在美国，超过95%的采用膜过滤的水处理厂目前的运行能力仅为其设计能力的30-50%。我们革命性的预处理技术不仅减轻了污染，还将系统生产率提高了400%，并将所需的膜清洗频率降低了50倍，从而节省了水、金钱和能源。该工艺可以将水处理厂的资本支出和年运营成本降低约25%。我们的创新也适用于咸水，因此它可以用作海水淡化的预处理，它可以通过去除废水中的磷来解决另一个主要的环境挑战，从而减少有毒藻类的大量繁殖。与现有技术相比，SBIR二期项目将继续扩大我们预处理技术的规模和商业化活动，以提高水处理过程中膜在污染物去除、工艺生产率和能源效率方面的性能。该工艺依赖于在新型反应器中应用专有颗粒，并已在我们的第一阶段工作中得到证明。第二阶段工作的目标是：(1)使用商业上合适的材料和制造工艺扩大和建造更大的处理模块；(2)在更激进的操作条件下进行测试；(3)改进颗粒生产、输送和处置流程；(4)评价颗粒作为污水除磷和回收的经济方法的适用性。经济分析也将使用在第二阶段研究中收集的数据进行更新。这项工作将把我们工艺的技术准备水平（TRL）提高到TRL6，同时为进一步的开发和营销信誉提供必要的数据。在第二阶段完成后，我们预计将准备在每天处理100万加仑的小型商业系统中部署，并在更大的系统中进行测试。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project results from the advancement of a novel water treatment process that reduces membrane fouling and significantly lowers water treatment costs. Membrane filtration is one of the primary water treatment technologies to address the global challenge of water scarcity. However, the membrane industry suffers from low productivity and high operational cost caused by fouling. Over 95% of the water treatment plants in US that employ membrane filtration currently operate at only 30-50% of their design capacity. Our revolutionary pretreatment technology not only mitigates fouling, but also increases system productivity by up to 400% and decreases the required membrane cleaning frequency by a factor of 50, thereby saving water, money and energy. The process can reduce both the capital expense and annual operational cost of water treatment plants by roughly 25%. Our innovation is also applicable to saline water, so it can be used as a pretreatment for desalination, and it can address another major environmental challenge by removing phosphorus from wastewater and thereby reducing the prevalence of blooms of toxic algae.This SBIR Phase II project will continue our scale-up and commercialization activities for our pretreatment technology to improve the performance of membranes in water treatment processes with respect to contaminant removal, process productivity, and energy efficiency, compared to existing technologies. The process relies on application of a proprietary particle in a novel reactor and has been demonstrated in our Phase I work. The objectives of the Phase II work are (1) scale-up and construction of larger treatment modules using commercially suitable materials and fabrication processes; (2) testing under more aggressive operational conditions; (3) improving particle production, delivery, and disposal processes; and (4) evaluating the particles' suitability as an economic approach to remove and recover phosphorus from wastewater. The economic analysis will also be updated using data collected in Phase II study. The effort will advance the technical readiness level (TRL) of our process to TRL6, while providing essential data for further development and credibility for marketing. On completion of Phase II, we expect to be prepared for deployment in small-scale commercial systems treating one million gallons per day, and for testing in larger systems.