Chementator briefs

NITROGEN UTILIZATION

Late March, the first nitrogen fertilizer produced from a wastewater-treatment plant sidestream was delivered to a farm in Sweden. The fertilizer was produced at a pilot plant that began operation last December at Ragn-Sells Högbytorp’s (www.ragensells.se) wastewater-treatment and recycling facility in Upplands-Bo, near Stockholm, Sweden. The pilot plant is part of the E.U.’s LIFE RE-Fertilizer project, which includes partner companies EasyMining AB (Uppsala, Sweden; www.easymining.se), Biofos (Copenhagen, Denmark; biofos.dk), Lantmännen (Stockholm, Sweden; www.lantmannen.com) and Sagn-Sells.

The pilot plant features two mobile units and has a capacity to process 4m³/h of water. It is the first industrial-scale demonstration of a patented process, developed by EasyMining, that recovers resources from wastewater with high concentrations of ammonium nitrogen.

According to project manager Anna Lundbom, head of marketing at EasyMining, the currently used biological-based processes just release the nitrogen into the atmosphere after removing it. Instead, the process applied by the nitrogen pilot plant captures it for use in, for example, fertilizers, she said. The new process also would replace conventional denitrification methods that produce emissions of nitrous oxide, a powerful greenhouse gas.

After completing tests last month, the pilot plant was moved to Denmark, where it will operate on reject water from the sewage-sludge dewatering stage of Biofos’ Lynetten wastewater-treatment facility.