Development of a geochemical tool to predict iron precipitation in wastewater

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Trojan Technologies encompasses six businesses involved in improving the efficiency and sustainability ofvarious stages of the water treatment process. USP Technologies is one such Trojan business, providingfull-service, in-field, chemical treatment programs to the water and wastewater industry. USP Technologiesapplies chemical knowledge and treatment expertise to facilitate chemical cost savings and improved waterquality for their clients. Iron salts are a very common chemical used in the wastewater industry and USPTechnologies can provide strategies to decrease iron costs by regeneration of the same iron at multiple pointswithin the same plant, and the surrounding sewer. Thus, less total iron needs to be added to meet wastewatertreatment plant objectives. All treatment plants are configured differently though; thus, in order to best advisetheir clients, USP needs tools to predict the likely outcomes of chemical and physical process manipulations,before full-scale implementation. Tools for such predictions are not yet in existence. Full-scale treatment plantmodels are commercially available but the ones on the market currently focus on biological processes, and notas much on chemistry. Academic geochemical models are available but require specific geochemical expertisenot common to wastewater practitioners. Thus, USP Technologies requires a simple to use computational toolto provide predictions of likely solid and soluble forms of iron depending on different proposed scenarios tomanage chemical (iron) use in a treatment plant. For example, operators could input a baseline condition, withappropriate field measurements, and compare that to one or more anticipated future states. Ultimately, USPwould benefit from a full-scale coupled biological and chemical model but that is beyond the scope of a 6month Engage project. The model generated by this Engage will serve as a proof-of-principle and, although auseful tool in itself, will also be a starting place for development of more advanced computational tools andextended collaborations.