New technology for ammonium nitrogen recovery from wastewater. Phase I.

氮是生命最基本的营养素之一。它大量存在于空气中；然而，生物和植物不能以这种形式获得它。为了使其可用，它被转化为氨气，使用相当昂贵的化学过程，消耗大量的化石燃料和能源，并产生温室气体。与此同时，几乎所有的城市污水流，以及许多工业废水，都含有大量的氨氮。除非处理得当，否则会造成环境污染问题。目前，许多污水处理厂将氨以其在空气中的存在形式转化为氮气。然而，大多数这类技术都非常昂贵，有时不能应用于一些废水处理系统。提出的从废水中回收氨氮的技术使我们能够在不进行化学或生物破坏的情况下将其去除，并将其转化为不同的商业产品。它们有可能替代一些工业合成氨产品。这项新技术将从废水中生产氨或含有氨的产品，从而减少对昂贵的合成氨生产的需求。同时，将解决废水处理中去除氨氮的挑战。这项技术的一些产品可能是：净化废水、含氨化肥或氨气。后者不仅可用于农业，还可用作替代燃料。

Nitrogen is one of the most essential nutrients for life. Large amounts of it are present in the air; however it is not available to the organisms and plants in this form. In order to make it available, it is turned into ammonia gas, using rather expensive chemical process which consumes substantial amounts of fossil fuels and energy, and produces greenhouse gases. At the same time, almost any municipal wastewater stream, and many industrial ones, contain large quantities of nitrogen in the form ammonium, or ammonia. Unless treated properly, it can cause environmental pollution problems. Currently, many wastewater treatment plants convert ammonium back into the nitrogen gas, the form it is present in the air. However, most of such technologies are very expensive and sometimes cannot be applied to some wastewater streams. The proposed technology of ammonium nitrogen recovery from wastewater enables us to remove it without chemical or biological destruction, and turn it into different commercial products. They can potentially substitute for some industrial synthetic ammonia products. This new technology will produce ammonia, or products containing it, from wastewater, reducing the need for the expensive synthetic ammonia production. At the same time, the wastewater treatment challenges to remove ammonium nitrogen will be addressed. Some of the products of this technology may be: purified wastewater, ammonia containing fertilizer, or ammonia gas. The latter can be used not only in agriculture, but also as an alternative fuel.