Wastewater Treatment Research & Development

Ecovation’s Solutions Development Center serves a dual purpose:

1) To support our mission to design an ideal, customized solution for each client and their particular site’s specific needs.

2) To identify new markets that suit the MFT’s capabilities.

We accomplish this in a number of ways:

Evaluation Programs
Ecovation provides all levels of wastewater assessment for its clients, including:

• Review of available data for both water and energy
• Metrics on use-per-unit product, cost-per-unit product and per 1000f3 of water, and others as identified
• Information on wastewater flows, composition, and concentrations
• Effluent criteria, future expansion plans, and anticipated changes in flows or regulatory limits
• Assess opportunities for by-product utilization (water reclamation and offset energy)

Waste Minimization Audits

• Learn how, where, and why water is used
• Identify and rate existing equipment
• Interview personnel to learn operational challenges

Process Modeling

• Provide a preliminary design and budgetary costing for a complete solution, including necessary pre- and post-treatment steps
• Identify data gaps and develop a sampling program to help fill them in

Sampling and Analyticals

• Both in-house as well as third-party labs for results verification

Bench-scale Treatability Studies

• Assess the wastewater’s treatability and provide accurate projections for gas production and nutrient requirements

On-site Pilot Testing

• A mobile unit, capable of treating up to 300 lbs-COD/day for real-time testing and analysis

Full-scale demonstration projects

• For clients with multiple facilities where long-term testing of myriad waste streams are required

Compatible Technologies Assessment
We continuously search for ways to improve upon the solutions we provide to our clients. Using the MFT as the cornerstone of each system’s design, we continuously seek out complementary technologies to wrap around it in order to better serve our customers’ needs. This could include aerobic polishing, filtration systems, or DAF units, to name a few.

Ongoing Technological Improvements
Ecovation maintains remote, live access to all of the facilities it operates. That data is continuously evaluated to ensure that the ‘lessons learned’ are incorporated into future design solutions.

While the majority of our installations are for clients in the food & beverage industry, the MFT is also well-matched for ethanol and pharamaceutical wastes. In addition, as part of our ongoing development efforts, our team is focused on testing the limits of the MFT’s capabilities to identify new markets in which it can be applied, such as pulp & paper, chemical, petrochemical, and other organic waste streams.