Wastewater typically contains a large amount of nutrients, including phosphorus and nitrogen. If not properly managed, these nutrients can pose a threat to infrastructure and the environment leading to issues such as eutrophication in waterbodies and a buildup of struvite in mechanical systems. Wastewater treatment plants can mitigate these challenges with a nutrient recovery process that can improve water quality and meet stringent discharge limits by converting discarded phosphorus into an environmentally friendly fertilizer needed to grow food.
Nutrient recovery is a sustainable approach to wastewater management by recovering nutrients from where they shouldn’t be - in our waterways and transforming them into high-performing fertilizers. This approach is proven to increase yields while reducing runoff and non-point source pollution.
Ostara’s Pearl® System, offered by Evoqua Water Technologies, is helping deliver an innovative wastewater nutrient recovery solution that harvests nutrients from wastewater and transform them into an eco-friendly fertilizer. This approach is both innovative and sustainable providing communities and industries around the world with a process to manage valuable nutrients while meeting strict phosphorus discharge limits.
Ostara’s Pearl system by Evoqua is a fluidized bed reactor designed to recover phosphorus from municipal and industrial waste streams though the controlled precipitation of crystalline struvite. Within the Pearl system reactor, the growth of struvite (magnesium ammonium phosphate) is facilitated by the addition of magnesium in a controlled pH setting. This allows nutrients to crystallize into eco-friendly fertilizer granules, which are harvested, dried, and then distributed and sold by Ostara as Crystal Green® Fertilizer.
Note: Ostara, Pearl, and Crystal Green are trademarks of Ostara Nutrient Recovery Technologies, Inc., used under license.
