Utilization of Enhanced Primary Treatment Technology

There are a number of benefits from the enhanced capture of organics in the primary treatment stage, the two most significant being a decrease in energy consumption and an increase in energy production. By removing a higher fraction of organics in the primary stage, aeration energy required for secondary treatment is reduced as well as yielding a primary sludge with greater biogas generation potential. In addition to the diversion of digestible material from secondary treatment to anaerobic digestion, enhanced primary treatment provides higher TSS removal and combined with the use of coagulant addition leads to phosphorus removal. The results of a demonstration for enhanced primary treatment using a new patented technology are presented and they indicate that utilization of this technology can lead to net positive energy operation for water resource recovery, aka wastewater treatment.