Emeryville, CA -- New Logic Research, Inc., the maker of VSEP, the vibrating membrane filtration system, announced its participation in the official commissioning ceremony for the Australian Hardboards Water Recycling Plant in Queensland, Australia.

On hand for the ceremony were members of the Australian Hardboards and New Logic executive team, as well as numerous business leaders and local officials, including Cr. Paul Pisasale, the mayor of Ipswich.

The wastewater treatment and recovery system, which combines seven i84 VSEP nanofiltration membrane modules, recovers wastewater for reuse within the plant. The system, which is capable of processing approximately 200,000 gallons per day, runs continuously automated by a programmable logic controller (PLC).

According to New Logic CEO Greg Johnson, "VSEP is fast becoming accepted as the best available technology for tough wastewater treatment applications in Australia. The Australian Hardboards installation represents our second Australian installation in as many months; still more will be coming online within the next year. We were honored to be a part of the ceremony, and to show our commitment to helping to solve the Australian water shortage problem."

New Logic International Sales Manager Melysa Reiss adds, "The paradox of Australia's decreasing water resources and increasing industrial demand requires innovative technologies to bridge the gap. We are proud to have the opportunity to do just that for Australian Hardboards and other firms throughout the continent."

Water shortage caused by drought and increased populations has created a crisis in many parts of Australia. Water supply levels have fallen to 30% of normal, and continue to drop. Local water districts have implemented severe water restrictions to try to stop the drop in supply levels. Brisbane is currently at a Level 4 water restriction that requires mandatory conservation.

By recycling its wastewater and reducing its fresh water intake using the VSEP system, AHL has conserved the equivalent of 2000 homes worth of water supply per year. This example of water conservation is being used as a showpiece for other industries to follow.

For more information contact:
Mr. Josh Miller
Business Development Manager
New Logic Research, Inc.
1295 67th Street
Emeryville, CA 94608
Web site: http://www.vsep.com/

Better Sludge through Metagenomics

WALNUT CREEK, CA--Few stop to consider the consequences of their daily ablutions, the washing of clothes, the watering of lawns, and the flush of a toilet. However, wastewater treatment--one of the corner stones of modern civilization--is the largest microbially mediated biotechnology process on the planet. When it works, it is a microbial symphony in tune with humanity. When it fails, the consequences can be dire.

Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI) and collaborators at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Advanced Wastewater Management Centre, University of Queensland, Australia, have published the first metagenomic study of an activated sludge wastewater treatment process. The research appeared online in the September 24 edition of the journal Nature Biotechnology.

The metagenomic strategy entails generating DNA sequence information directly from samples of sewage sludge to provide a blueprint of the genes and hence the metabolic possibilities of the wastewater environment, with a view to understanding how the system works and predicting and averting failures or crashes.

"This is a first step in a much broader strategy employing a systems biology approach to the study of microbial communities with the goal of designing predictive models to understand how these communities function," said Hector Garcia Martin, lead author of the study and post-doctoral fellow in the DOE JGI's Microbial Ecology Program. "With this information now available, there are opportunities to bioengineer the process to make it more reliable."

Removing excess phosphorus from wastewater can be most economically accomplished by environmentally friendly biological means in a process known as enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR). The researchers were able to obtain a nearly complete genetic blueprint for a key player in this process, the bacterial species Accumulibacter phosphatis.

Activated sludge wastewater treatment processes are used throughout the world to purify trillions of gallons of sewage annually. Many treatment plants employ specialized bacteria to remove the nutrient phosphorus, in an effort to protect lakes and rivers from eutrophication, a deterioration of water quality characterized by excessive algae blooms. Accumulibacter play a vital role in wastewater management, accumulating massive amounts of phosphorus inside their cells.

"Engineers and microbiologists have been trying for 35 years to grow this microbe, with no success," said Trina McMahon, Assistant Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Wisconsin, Madison, and one of the study's authors. "Remarkably, through metagenomic techniques, we were able to isolate and acquire the genome sequence of Accumulibacter phosphatis without a pure culture of the organism, which, like most microbes, eludes laboratory culture. We expect that clues hidden in the genome will lead to domestication of this mysterious organism, enabling further studies of its habits and lifestyle.

"The genome sequence will also enable biologists and engineers to understand why and how these organisms accumulate phosphorus, and it will lead to major advances in optimizing and controlling the EBPR wastewater treatment process," McMahon said. "In particular, it makes possible further research into why some wastewater treatment plants occasionally fail. These failures often result in serious pollution of lakes, rivers, and estuaries."

When things go wrong, the environment can be inundated with untreated phosphorous, carbon, and nitrogen--the detritus of human activities--necessitating costly and environmentally taxing remedies and exposing the public to potential disease hazards. The scale is daunting--more than 31 billion gallons of wastewater are treated daily in the U.S. alone. Even a marginal improvement in the process would translate into huge savings and spell relief for environmental engineers.

David Jenkins is Professor Emeritus of Environmental Engineering at the University of California at Berkeley. His research spans some forty years of international professional practice in water and wastewater chemistry and wastewater treatment for government, municipalities, and industry. He has specialized in the chemical precipitation of phosphate from wastewater and sludges, the causes and control of activated sludge bulking and foaming, and biological nutrient removal.

"The findings and tools described in this landmark paper will allow the resolution of many of the questions that have arisen concerning the mechanism by which the enhanced removal of phosphate from wastewater occurs," said Jenkins. "Understanding these mechanisms will undoubtedly lead to more efficient operation of the process and to the development of more robust designs."

Microorganisms are well equipped to do the job, but activated sludge is a black box, at least for those engineers who are dependent on the microbial aspect of the equation. To shed some light on the challenge, the team compared sludge samples from wastewater plants in Madison, Wisconsin, and Brisbane, Australia, that they maintained in laboratory-scale bioreactors to control and monitor the status of the sludge microbial communities.

"We found functions that didn't make sense for the current lifestyle of the organism," said Phil Hugenholtz, head of the JGI's Microbial Ecology Program. "Accumulibacter has all the genes necessary to fix carbon and nitrogen, which it would be compelled to do in a nutrient-poor environment like freshwater, but it presumably wouldn't have much use for in nutrient-rich EBPR sludge. So it got us thinking that these bacteria must be living in natural habitats and that they have become opportunistically adapted to this manmade process, wastewater treatment." It would appear, Hugenholtz went on, that Accumulibacter has been following in humanity's environmental footprints. "The genomes of the bacteria from the two sites were surprisingly similar--practically identical in parts--from samples separated by nearly 9,000 miles."

Source: http://www.jgi.doe.gov/
 

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Three New Sessions Added to WEFTEC.06
The Water Environment Federation (WEF) announces the addition of three special sessions to the technical program of WEFTEC .06.
 

Layne Christensen to Purchase American Water's UIG Layne Christensen Company announced today it has signed a Letter of Intent to purchase American Water's Underground Infrastructure Group.

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This weeks photo is of a 100 cu. ft. Dryvac filter press installed at a membrane bio-reactor facility supplied by Dehydration & Environmental Systems (DES). The Dryvac unit is used to dewater the biosolids produced by the MBR to 75% solids.

Photo courtesy Bob West of DES.

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