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

氮是生命最基本的营养物质之一。空气中有大量的甲烷；然而，这种形式的生物体和植物无法获得它。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。同时，几乎所有的城市污水流和许多工业废水流都含有大量铵态氮或氨态氮。如果处理不当，它会造成环境污染问题。目前，许多污水处理厂将氨重新转化为空气中存在的氮气。然而，这些技术大多非常昂贵，有时无法应用于某些废水流。提出的从废水中回收铵态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氨产品，减少了对昂贵的合成氨生产的需求。同时，解决了废水处理中氨氮去除的难题。该技术的一些产品可能是：净化废水，含氨肥料或氨气。后者不仅可以用于农业，还可以作为替代燃料。

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.