Ostara Nutrient Recovery Technologies Inc. announced that the city of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, has approved the construction of a facility at its H.M. Weir Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) that will recover phosphorus and nitrogen from treated wastewater streams and transform them into a highly pure, slow-release fertilizer called Crystal Green.
Ostara’s technology provides the city with a cost-effective and environmental solution for removing polluting nutrients from the WWTP’s liquid wastewater stream. In addition to removing nutrients from the facility, the city selected Ostara’s Pearl Nutrient Recovery Technology to help overcome current operational issues caused by the unintentional build-up of struvite. Struvite is a concrete-like mineral deposit that chokes process equipment, increases operation and maintenance costs, and threatens plant reliability.
The unintentional formation of struvite is a common challenge in plants such as the Saskatoon WWTP, which practice biological nutrient removal and anaerobic digestion. Previously, the city has been forced to use chemical dosing to address struvite problems, which is cost-prohibitive.
“Ostara’s nutrient recovery technology provides a cost-effective and environmentally friendly alternative that will immediately solve Saskatoon’s wastewater treatment plant’s struvite challenges,” said Ostara President and CEO Phillip Abrary.
Saskatoon’s new nutrient recovery facility will be the first Canadian site to feature Ostara’s newly-designed Pearl 2000, which has the capacity to produce 730 metric tonnes of Crystal Green fertilizer every year. It will also be Ostara’s first commercial implementation of the WASSTRIP process, which is an ideal complement to the company’s Pearl nutrient recovery technology in plants that are using biological phosphorus removal.
The WASSTRIP process was developed in partnership with Clean Water Services to enhance the efficacy of the Pearl process and control struvite scale formations throughout the sludge treatment stream.
Source: Ostara Nutrient Recovery Technologies Inc.
