North America’sDeammonification System Recognised

World Water Works, Inc. (USA), a specialist designer and manufacturer of wastewater treatment solutions and Virginia utility Hampton Roads Sanitation District (HRSD), received the American Association of Environmental Engineers and Scientists (AAEES) Honor Award for Environmental Sustainability, for implementation of the first DEMON sidestream deammonification system in North America. The efficient and ecofriendly DEMON process had previously been used only in Europe.

HRSD’s York River Treatment Plant proved a perfect candidate for the DEMON system because its existing sequential batch reactors (SBR) and equalisation tanks could be easily retrofitted for the process. This allowed simple and inexpensive installation of DEMON in less than 4 months. Successful operation has continued since early January.

World Water Works was founded on a basis of delivering innovation and sustainability to the market.  A testament to that is the recent recognition by Inc. 5000’s list of fastest growing companies in the US, ranked as the 52^nd among manufacturing companies and 13^th among all Oklahoma companies.

DEMON removes ammonia from wastewater in a biological process that features ammonia oxidising bacteria (AOB), which convert half the ammonia to nitrite. A second anaerobic biological process uses Anammox bacteria to convert the combination of nitrite and remaining ammonia directly into nitrogen gas. This system reduces energy requirements by 60 percent compared to traditional nitrogen removal processes, eliminates the need for all chemicals, and produces 90 percent less sludge. The system also features a low carbon footprint.

The process is seeded with Anammox bacteria, which aids in a quick start up of a system versus cultivating bacteria from scratch. This factor has proven to be an obstacle for other deammonification technologies. To retain the Anammox bacteria, a unique patent pending separation device provides enrichment of the specialised slow-growing Anammox biomass. The device enhances process robustness and treatment capacity and provides resilience despite changes in wastewater quality.