ThermoEnergy Corp., a globally-focused developer of clean water and energy technologies, announced today the signing of a non-exclusive Memorandum of Understanding with F. R. Mahony & Associates (FRMA), a sustainability-minded wastewater and water treatment company now in its 47th year of operation.
The goal of the Memorandum is to co-develop a nitrogen removal process for the remediation of industrial and municipal waste water. TMEN brings its powerful Ammonia Recovery Process (ARP), and the scientific and engineering peerage support of its partner AECOM, together with the biological AOx process developed by FRMA (for the removal and recovery of nitrogen as ammonia), to create BioCAST™, a new process touting 85% nitrogen reduction capability which also recovers the vast majority of that nitrogen as ammonia.
Ideally suited for the wastewater generated by industry, agribusiness and municipalities, as well as landfill leachate (run-off) and other high potency waste streams, the BioCAST process is able to maintain high-volume processing capacity while having a footprint that is 1/6th the size of traditional biological processing systems. Coupled with its low cost and ability to reduce nitrous oxide, the BioCAST process represents a groundbreaking innovation in water treatment.
Executive Chairman of TMEN, Dennis C. Cossey, signified his pleasure to be working with FRMA on this paradigm-shattering research, and spoke of the potential of BioCAST to provide a low-cost solution for some of today’s most pressing and difficult wastewater treatment concerns.
Director of Engineering at FRMA, Dr. Phillip Pedros, described the bringing together of these two processes, both revolutionary in their own right, as “the future of wastewater treatment where the best of biological processes are combined with the best of physical/chemical treatment”, and hailed the marriage of the technologies as an answer to the growing demand for a sustainable and economical solution that satisfies increasingly stringent protocols and regulatory requirements.
Dr. Pedros added that TMEN’s patented ARP technology (which offers multiple benefits over existing ammonia removal technologies), accessed via the partnership, would even open up new ways of looking at the same problems, leading to downstream synergies in terms of process and improved efficiency.
The City of New York, in selecting a sole-source contract with TMEN on the ARP project, called this incredible technology a superior approach to currently employed biological treatment processes for removing ammonia and delimiting nutrient spread and contamination of NYC’s surrounding waters, and also noted that it was able to prevent “fugitive emissions of Greenhouse gases released by wastewater treatment”, while simultaneously consuming less power.
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