Easy upgrades to achieve ammonia removal from industrial wastewater lagoons

Mining, petrochemical manufacturing, livestock farming and food processing are among the many industrial activities that produce high strength ammonia wastewater streams.

Dealing with these wastes often involves onsite lagoon systems with varying capabilities. Some onsite lagoons provide partial treatment and then release the effluent to the municipal sewer, whereas others that are in more remote areas are designed to meet regulatory limits for effluent discharge to irrigation fields or receiving bodies.

But industrial lagoons can struggle in the winter months to achieve sufficient high strength ammonia removal because the microbes responsible for nitrification slow down or die off in the cold conditions.

BioCord™ Reactors can help.

This simple, fixed-film treatment system can give a significant boost to the microbial population in a lagoon to improve high strength ammonia removal from an industrial wastewater lagoon and maintain it during cold weather. Unlike MBBR, or trickling filters which require side stream infrastructure, BioCord is installed directly into the treatment lagoon, eliminating the need for costly tanks, blowers and associated equipment.

BioCord is like a condominium for bacteria. It’s made with densely arranged loops of polymer fibers that are suspended from a frame, which can be customized for any lagoon depth. This design also significantly reduces energy consumption for aeration since there’s no need to maintain biofilm carrier media in suspension. Instead, each BioCord reactor is equipped with an integrated fine bubble aeration system that is powered by a compressor and achieves the same oxygen transfer as a blower, but uses about 50% less electricity. New research shows that BioCord reactors can achieve cold-weather ammonia removal and even uses less energy than MBBR systems.

Once installed and optimized, a BioCord system can remove more than 90% of the ammonia, even when the temperature is as low as 1°C.