A balanced approach to nutrient management and water reuse for the livestock industry

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The research proposed aims to develop new waste management and water reuse processes for the livestock industry to help control pollution and enhance nutrients utilization ans water reuse. Such an approach will help minimize environmental deterioration and prevent ecosystem health degradation at the same time as it seeks to recovery nutrients from dairy wastes and reuse of the treated wastewater effluent. An innovative new wastewater treatment process train will be developed, which will seek to conserve nutrients, such as nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, rather than remove them. Nutrients conservation in manure management systems, and their subsequent extraction from the effluent for reuse as fertilizer will have a major impact on the schemes of animal manure management. Nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium in process wastewaters will be recovered as struvite, a valuable, slow-release, fertilizer via a new crystallization process developed at UBC. A novel biological process using lab-scale sequencing batch reactors will be developed and tested during the first phase of experimental work. In addition to the biological process, an innovative microwave enhanced, advanced oxidation process will be examined for its suitability for treating and releasing nutrients from raw dairy manure. Upon the completion of the laboratory testing, a compact wastewater treatment facility will be designed, constructed at the UBC Dairy Education and Research Centre. The technology developed in this work will be fully tested and evaluated in pilot-scale studies at the dairy research centre. It is anticipated that the technologies developed during this research will have substantial positive impacts on both the economic and environmental sustainability of the livestock industry. The knowledge and technology developed during the course of these studies should also have immediate applications and benefits to Canadian engineering companies. It also has the potential to develop new secondary industry for animal waste management in B.C., as well as elsewhere in Canada. This project will also offer unique opportunities for the training of both graduate and undergraduate students.