Closing wastewater treatment energy balance through advanced nutrient removal and recovery

该研究将通过简化脱氮过程和降低成本来提高废水处理的环境可持续性。它将增加在废水处理设施的不同位置去除磷的机会，并随后通过商业工艺回收。为这项研究组建的团队有三个主要目标。第一个目标是应用一种新技术，即用氢气利用膜生物膜反应器去除氮。这将通过使用无孔膜来实现，这是一项在原型阶段的新技术，因此，可以探索和发现从废水和地下水中去除氮的新方法。在第二个目标中，我们建议研究在厌氧甲烷生成消化之前使用酸发酵从污泥处理中回收上清的潜力。这将导致去除丝状微生物，使它们不会在厌氧消化中产生泡沫。该工艺有望提高污泥的消化率，改善甲烷的产生，并增加富磷上清，用于随后的磷回收。第三个目标涉及一种新的厌氧膜生物反应器，该反应器引入极低直流电的电极，以产生用于非饮用工业再利用的高质量废水。这项研究的推动力是这样一个事实，即草原上的农业废物和粪便需要使用厌氧消化和去除磷，这导致草原湖泊富营养化。这项研究将开发一种机制，通过这种机制，磷被溶解，因此很容易用镁化合物去除，从而产生一种可用的肥料，称为鸟粪石。在我的指导下组建的团队所要实现的研究对加拿大经济的影响是非常显著的：改善污水处理厂的能源利用和管理；除磷与沼气回收的分离改善营养物的去除，以满足日益严格的污水标准。

The proposed research will improve the environmental sustainability of wastewater treatment by simplifying the process of nitrogen removal and lowering its cost. It will increase the opportunity for phosphorus removal in different locations in the wastewater treatment facility and its subsequent recovery by commercial processes. The team assembled for this research has three main objectives. The first objective is to apply a novel technology where hydrogen gas is used to remove nitrogen using membrane biofilm reactors. This will be done by using non-porous membranes, which is a new technology at the prototype stage, therefore, allowing for exploration and discovery of new methods of nitrogen removal from wastewater and groundwater. In the second objective we propose to investigate the potential for recovery of supernatant from sludge treatment before anaerobic methane-generating digestion, using acid fermentation. This will result in the removal of filamentous microorganisms so they do not contribute to foaming in anaerobic digestion. The process is expected to lead to better digestibility of the sludge and improved methane generation, and an increase in phosphorus-rich supernatant for subsequent phosphorus recovery. The third objective involves a new anaerobic membrane bioreactor that introduces electrodes supplied with very low direct current to produce a high-quality effluent for non-potable industrial reuse. The impetus for this research is the fact that agricultural wastes and manures in the Prairies are required to use anaerobic digestion and removal of phosphorus, which causes eutrophication of Prairie lakes. This research will develop a mechanism by which phosphorus is solubilized and thus easily removed using magnesium compounds thus producing a usable fertilizer called struvite. The impact on Canadian economy of the research to be realized by the assembled team under my guidance is very significant: improve energy use and management at wastewater treatment plants; resolution of phosphorus removal concurrent with biogas recovery; improved removal of nutrients to meet the increasingly more stringent effluent standards.