New Technology Adds Significant Efficiency to Wastewater Nutrient Recovery
ThermoEnergy Corp., a leading supplier of wastewater recovery technology and systems, has introduced the Thermo ARP™, a new, high-efficiency process for recovering nutrients from wastewater.
Thermo ARP is specifically designed for use with agricultural, industrial and municipal anaerobic digesters where the wastewater stream may require a simpler treatment strategy for ammonia removal. The addition of the new Thermo ARP to the company's existing ARP system which is currently being installed at New York City's 26th Ward wastewater treatment plant enables ThermoEnergy Corp. to address a wide range of ammonia reduction issues across multiple market segments.
"This latest generation of our ammonia recovery process is a major breakthrough in nutrient treatment," said Cary Bullock, CEO of ThermoEnergy Corp. "The mechanism for ammonia recovery is completely different from our ARP system and takes advantage of conditions typically found in industrial, food, and agricultural treatment sites, as well as at some municipal treatment sites. At these sites, Thermo ARP eliminates chemical pre-treatment while reducing the cost of nutrient removal by as much as 70 percent compared to our ARP system. That in itself is remarkable, since our ARP provides a solution that is a fraction of the cost of traditional solutions in municipal applications.
"Thermo ARP also enables us to reduce our already small footprint, while further simplifying our system operations. And just like our ARP systems, that will remain the standard for efficiency in many applications, Thermo ARP recovers nitrogen in the form of fertilizer that can be reused or sold to create additional revenue opportunities. Thermo ARP is applicable to a large and growing market. We expect this to be a significant sales generator as we go forward."
Thermo ARP joins ARP in ThermoEnergy's family of nutrient recovery technologies. These systems are the most cost effective solution for nitrogen reduction treatment for agricultural applications such as poultry production, meat processing, dairy and swine production, biogas, as well as industrial process wastewater, landfill leachate, and municipal sidestream treatment.
"Based on our proprietary CAST® technology platform, Thermo ARP uniquely combines heat and flash vacuum distillation to deliver the lowest cost per pound of nitrogen removed compared with any digestate treatment technology on the market today," said David Delasanta, Executive Vice President of Business Development. "For agricultural and municipal high rate anaerobic digesters, Thermo ARP has a nitrogen treatment cost per pound of nitrogen removed that is materially less than that of the most efficient competing technologies."
Both ARP and Thermo ARP have the economic and environmental advantage of recovering nitrogen as a fertilizer. By recovering ammonia and not releasing it into the atmosphere, revenue from the sale of fertilizer combined with the nutrient credits now offered in several states, can provide less than a three-year payback on the equipment investment.