Competitive Advantages:
Treats high strength wastewater, Reduces ammonia toxicity, Cost effective, Biopolymer production.
The disclosure, in one aspect, relates to hybrid ion-exchange and algae photosynthesis systems and processes for algae cultivation and treatment of high NH4 + concentration wastewater. The disclosed systems and methods can be further optimized using a disclosed mathematical model that can predict the hybrid ion-exchange and algae photosynthesis process including temporal evolution of the NH4 + concentration. This abstract is intended as a scanning tool for purposes of searching in the particular art and is not intended to be limiting of the present invention.Researchers at USF have developed a Hybrid Algal Photosynthesis Ion Exchange (HAPIX) process to reduce the ammonia toxicity in wastewater thereby facilitating its treatment. The invention can be used for treatment of high ammonia strength wastewater, such as industrial wastewaters (e.g. from tanneries, food processing, fertilizer, explosives manufacturing, landfill leachate, source separated urine, and centrate from anaerobic digestion). The process will reduce the operation & maintenance cost of high strength ammonia wastewater treatment while producing algal biomass that can be used to produce versatile byproducts, such as fertilizer, animal feed and biofuel.
