Facilities
Industrial
Municipal
Water

Digestate Enhancement and Treatment

An environmentally considerate process to manage nutrients and recover valuable resources.

About The Technology

Digestate enhancement and treatment technologies have become more important due to the increase in the number and capacity of AD plants and industrial processes. Due to growing environmental and regulatory concerns, there is a need to manage nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium in the digestate and how these are spread onto land.

Colloide have developed a digestate treatment system that not only targets effective management of ammonia emissions but by recovering valuable resources also enables a zero-waste solution. The recovered resources are products of agricultural value and present an opportunity to achieve a zero pollution digestate management system. We have a wealth of experience in providing both innovative solutions and upgrading existing systems. Our Digestate Treatment System is compliant with government regulations and codes of good practice. 

Colloide’s main methods are vaporisation (flash distillation/evaporation/stripping), reverse osmosis (including pre-filtration), chemical dosing (used in conjunction with other technologies) and a combination of SBR and MBR treatments.

Features

Why our Digestate Treatment System?

Enhanced solids separation and removal of suspended and dissolved solids.

Removal of COD, VOC, Potassium and Phosphorus.

Greenhouse gas reduction.

Vastly superior treated water quality and recovery of nutrients.

A flexible process which can be tailored to meet specific requirements.

Capture or removal of ammonia for spreading on land, storage as concentrated fertilizer or exporting off site.

Applications

Vaporisation: Flash distillation/evaporation/stripping

These different methods of vaporisation ensure that ammonia is removed (>75%) from whole digestate, allowing the solids to be spread on land at a much higher coverage and approved for exporting off site. Alternatively, the ammonia can be captured as a liquid product for storage as a concentrated fertilizer, which can also be transported off-site for other markets. These systems help reduce the production of greenhouse gases, such as methane and CO2 and target the removal of suspended solids and VOC.

Reverse Osmosis (including pre-filtration)

This treatment recycles the digestate waste water into water (clean water recovery >75%), that can be re‐used for washdown, irrigation, evaporative cooling or disposed directly to a watercourse, thus prolonging the availability of freshwater resources. It can remove microplastics, viruses, bacteria, pharmaceuticals and pesticides from treated water, as well as recovering specific nutrients. A pre‐filter is installed before the reverse osmosis (RO) membrane and extends the life of the more expensive RO membrane, thereby reducing our client’s overall operating cost. The treated effluent can be used as a concentrated liquid fertilizer for exporting from a digestor site.

Chemical dosing (used in conjunction with other technologies)

Colloide design and build customised chemical dosing systems for a wide range of chemicals and applications. These packages are tailored to suit our clients’ requirements while adhering to European Standards, Ciria and HSE guidance. Our chemical dosing systems in conjunction with other technologies aid in the removal of chemicals such as phosphorus and ammonia. This treatment also enhances the separation of solids from liquid digestate and/or removal of suspended and dissolved solids as well as improving overall sterilisation.

SBR & MBR 

The Sequential Batch Reactor (‘SBR’) and Membrane Bioreactor (MBR) are extremely compact and flexible solutions to waste water treatment. They offer an extremely high quality of treated effluent and both technologies achieve the removal of ammonia, suspended solids and COD. Our specialist MBR systems can also remove microplastics. The liquid fraction of digestate from these processes can be disposed to sewers, land or pre-treatment for further technologies.

Related Projects

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Get In Touch

If you’re interested in creating a brighter tomorrow, we want to work with you.

Alternatively, visit our office.
Derryloran Industrial Estate, Cookstown, BT80 9LU