More information
Description
Renewed European strategies and policies, with a strong focus on the European Green Deal and EU Circular Economy Action Plan (released in December 2019 and March 2020, respectively) stipulate that WWTP should become water resource recovery facilities. In the plants with anaerobic sludge digestion, the return liquors from dewatering of digested sludge (sidestream) contain high concentrations of ammonia nitrogen and phosphorus. These special characteristics bring new opportunities for implementing sustainable technologies for nutrient recovery. The aim of the project is to develop and explore an integrated nitrogen and phosphorus removal and recovery (INPORR) technology in sidestream and, consequently, strengthening the scientific career of Principal Investigator.
The novelty of the INPORR technology lies in the integration of phosphorus and nitrogen recovery and assembling these processes with the advanced, energy efficient process (deammonification) for nitrogen removal. The INPORR technology consists of three stages: 1) phosphorous recovery during chemical struvite precipitation, 2) nitrogen recovery using gas permeable membrane (GPM), and 3) deammonification for polishing nitrogen removal. The nutrients will be recovered in the form of potential fertilizers (ammonium sulphate and magnesium ammonium phosphate). In parallel, a reference technology, consisting of the phosphorus recovery unit and deammonification reactor, will be operated. The INPORR project includes both fundamental research and industrial research. Both lines will be compared in terms of the overall nitrogen removal performance, energy consumption, and greenhouse gas (N2O) production. A mathematical model of both lines will be built in the GPS-X simulation platform. After calibration and validation the model will be used a decision-making tool for designing or operating WWTPs in the view of reducing the environmental impacts of the nutrient removal/recovery processes.