Livestock Water Recycling
Published on by Water Network Research, Official research team of The Water Network in Technology
Land shortages and water pollution are a greater issue for American dairies, where more than 2,000 cows per dairy are common. American farms have fewer options when it comes to getting rid of waste. They also need more water.
"They run into operational issues because the cows don't stop making manure," Thurston said.
Some units have been sold in Canada, but most of the business has been with large dairies in New York, Michigan, Indiana and Wisconsin. These states are confronted with the problem of runoff into the Great Lakes, Chesapeake Bay and smaller lakes and streams.
The company has been working on waste-water treatment since 1990, but it was not until about 2005 that thoughts turned to manure.
"There are lots of devices out there for an astronomical cost. We had to make something that was customer friendly," Thurston said.
Plumbers, engineers and welders custom build each unit in a southeast Calgary industrial area.
"The system is a standard. The process we developed is different every time because each manure has its own type of solids and its own type of electrolytes," he said.
"We set up our chemistry around those things."
The system requires 6,000 to 10,000 sq. feet of space and eliminates the need for new lagoons.
"It eliminates the need for 2,000 acres of land," Thurston said.
"If you are going to have a big dairy in the U.S., you have to own or control the land that you are going to take your manure to."
The entire unit, which includes filters, pipes and a hopper to receive manure, can be producing clean water within two hours of installation.
The filters separate solid components, including phosphorus and nitrogen, which won't run off into water bodies when applied to fields.
In the first step, the effluent from the barn is pumped into an equalization tank and then pumped into the system, where it is filtered through a series of self cleaning membranes, where finer and finer particles are removed at each stage.
Pathogens cannot pass through the membranes, and elements such as ammonia are converted to ammonium so that the salt stays in the fertilizer rather than volatilize from the land.
"That is a big problem with manure value," Thurston said.
"You lose all your nitrogen that is the ammonia form because it comes off when you apply it. We capture it."
The process also reduces odour which will improve neighbour relations and create a more pleasant work environment for employees.
"We have the capacity to deal with the organics, we can deal with the salt levels that are in manure," he said.
"That is a critical feature of what we have developed here."
Seventy-five percent of the separated material comes back as clean water, which can be used to wash barns and animals or go into irrigation systems.
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Taxonomy
- Decontamination
- Wastewater Treatment