Nutrient removal using using a glass-base engineered adsorbent for treating public effluence and agricultural wastewater: designing of a portable continuous setup and study of an agricultural application of the saturated adsorbent

Agricultural wastewater and public effluents often contain elevated levels of phosphorous and nitrogen that limit its ability to be directly repurposed as crop fertilizer or irrigation spray. Removal of soluble nutrients from wastewater is difficult. Current treatment options have high investment costs and are often not well suited for smaller farm sizes common in Canada. This research intends to characterize the utility of a solid-state adsorbent material engineered by NPower Clean Tech Corporation that shows promise for removing anionic forms of phosphorous and nitrogen. Successful application of the saturated (spent) adsorbent for crop growing purposes (as soil amender and slow release fertilizer) will add more value to the whole process particularly for small size farms. If the product economically recovers these nutrients, then this research may directly benefit Canadian farmers, public sewer utilities, and waste generating industries by offering an additional means of controlling their waste stream profiles.

Faculty Supervisor:

Hossein Kazemian

Student:

Dorna Sobhani;Simisola Idim

Partner:

NPower Clean Tech Corporation

Discipline:

Environmental sciences

Sector:

Manufacturing

University:

University of Northern British Columbia