Clean Water Services and Ostara Nutrient Recovery Technologies Inc. have partnered to install an innovative nutrient recovery facility at Clean Water Services’ Rock Creek Advanced Wastewater Treatment Facility in Hillsboro, Ore. This will be Ostara’s second installation of a commercial Pearl Nutrient Recovery System at a Clean Water Services’ facility. Upon completion, the Rock Creek facility will be the largest Pearl facility in the world. Ostara’s first commercial Pearl Nutrient Recovery System began operating at Clean Water Services’ Durham Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant in June 2009.
The Rock Creek facility will commence construction this summer as part of the plant’s expansion, and is expected to be fully operational by fall 2011. The facility will feature two Pearl 2000 fluidized bed reactors, significantly larger than the systems currently installed at the Durham facility and in Ostara’s other commercial facilities in York, Pa., and Suffolk, Va. Clean Water Services’ Rock Creek Advanced Wastewater Treatment Facility cleans 39 million gal of wastewater per day from the municipalities of Hillsboro, Beaverton, Forest Grove, Cornelius, North Plains, Banks, Gaston, Aloha, Bethany, Cedar Mill and Rock Creek.
A common challenge for wastewater treatment facilities like Rock Creek is the over-accumulation of phosphorus in the equipment, resulting in the formation of struvite scale, a concrete-like mineral deposit that congests processing equipment, adding significantly to operating and maintenance costs and threatening plant reliability. Ostara’s Pearl process will help Clean Water Services overcome these challenges at Rock Creek with the recovery of up to 95% of the phosphorus and 20% of ammonia from the liquid wastewater stream, which will then be transformed into an environmentally friendly slow-release fertilizer marketed as Crystal Green.
The Pearl 2000 reactors at Rock Creek will have the capacity to produce 1200 tons of Crystal Green fertilizer every year. Combined with the Durham facility, which has an annual capacity of 500 tons, Clean Water Services will become the largest producer of Crystal Green in the world.
With the Ostara process, phosphorus and other essential nutrients are recovered and transformed into Crystal Green, which can be used locally by nurseries and other businesses in Washington County. Crystal Green provides a key environmental benefit for local waterways, since the fertilizer has limited runoff due to its slow-release properties.
Source: Ostara Nutrient Recovery Technologies Inc.
