SBIR Phase I: Algae Cultivation Technology for Value Added Co-products from Waste Water Treatment Effluent

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目的更广泛的影响是改善废水的再利用。 本项目提出了一种新的藻类反应器，以减少生物营养污染。这将改善健康，减少商业渔业资源的潜在损失，水上旅游和财产价值下降。 藻类种植可产生的产品多样性提高了全球食物链的稳健性和国内原料的安全性，例如牲畜和水产养殖的高营养饲料以及化学品和生物燃料的新来源。 该项目旨在通过开发一种工业规模的藻类光生物反应器，以大容量、连续流动的方式运行，从而降低废水处理设施流出物中的生物营养污染物水平。 与现有的营养物去除方法相比，新技术的预期优势是减少资本和运营费用，以及产生具有商业价值的高纯度藻类副产品的能力。 研究目标包括：（1）建立反应器在各种流动条件下的计算流体动力学（CFD）模型;（2）在反应器中进行染料示踪实验以验证模型结果;（3）将反应器安装为集成营养物去除系统的一部分，该系统包括超滤、产物循环流、营养物传感器和过程反馈控制;（4）使用活藻类培养物和来自邻近废水处理设施的流出物来评估系统的营养物去除能力;以及（5）对所提议的工艺进行技术经济分析。 该项目的结果将更好地了解反应器设计和操作参数对水力和固体停留时间分布的影响，以及这些参数如何影响系统的废物去除性能，该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准。

The broader impacts of this Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to improve reuse of wastewater. This project advances a new algae reactor to reduce biological nutrient pollution. This will improve health, potential loss of commercial fishing resources, water tourism, and property value decline. The diversity of products that can be generated from algae cultivation improve the robustness of the global food chain and the security of domestic feedstocks, e.g. high nutrition feeds for livestock and aquaculture and a new source of chemicals and biofuels. The proposed design for maximum resource efficiency in water and energy enables value extraction from marginal lands.The proposed project aims to reduce levels of biological nutrient pollutants in the effluent of wastewater treatment facilities—by the development of an industrial scale, algae photobioreactor, designed to operate in a high-volume, continuous flow process. Anticipated advantages of the new technology are a reduction in capital and operating expense compared to existing nutrient removal methods and the capacity to generate, high-purity, algae coproducts with commercial value. Research objectives include the following: (1) create a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model of the reactor under various flow conditions; (2) perform dye tracer experiments in the reactor as validation of the modeling results; (3) install the reactor as part of an integrated nutrient removal system including ultrafiltration, product recycle stream, nutrient sensors and process feedback control; (4) evaluate the nutrient removal capabilities of the system using a live algae culture and effluent from an adjacent wastewater treatment facility; and (5) perform a technoeconomic analysis of the proposed process. Results of the project will provide a better understanding of the effect of reactor design and operating parameters on the hydraulic and solids residence time distributions, how these influence the waste removal performance of the system, and what design parameters exert the most control over economic feasibility.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.