Nitrogen recovery from municipal biosolids

Tzahi Cath

tcath@mines.edu

For more than a century, wastewater treatment plants have been centered around the conventional activated sludge (CAS) process for secondary treatment, with the objective of returning constituents in the wastewater (WW) to their elemental level and sending residuals to landfills. This paradigm is energy and resource-intensive, and results in very limited resource recovery. In this project we plan to change this paradigm and overcome these challenges by shifting the treatment focus from CAS-centered treatment and disposal to anaerobic digester (AD)-centered treatment with an emphasis on energy positive treatment and ammonia recovery. We are testing three unique technologies, including cloth-media filtration, membrane evaporation processes, and enhanced anaerobic digestion for recovery of biogas and ammonia. Students will get to explore treatment and recovery/reuse of important resources in real environment and with direct connection to industry partners that might be their employers in the future...

Grand Challenge: Provide access to clean water.

A hybrid catalytic hydrogenation/membrane distillation process for nitrogen resource recovery from nitrate-contaminated waste ion exchange brine Enhancement of activated sludge wastewater treatment with hydraulic selection  

Tzahi Cath, tcath@mines.edu | Tayler Elwell, tjelwell@mines.edu | Isuru Arachchige, isuruabeysiriwardan@mines.edu |