The first ClearFox® Live webinar was a complete success. A total of 328 participants were interested in the topic of wastewater treatment in agriculture. This topic is becoming more and more important, as many places need to reduce nitrate pollution in the soil. The participants followed the live webinar with interest and asked many questions.
Live webinar at ClearFox®
Update 11/07/22
The ClearFox® live webinar is dedicated to wastewater treatment in agriculture
Sabine Düreth-Joneck, Head of Research and Development at PPU and Songyan Ben Huang, student assistant at the University of Bayreuth, awaited the participants for the first ClearFox® live webinar. After a short introduction, they first talked about why too much nitrate pollution in soils and arable land can be a challenge for the environment. The reason for this is often overfertilisation through liquid manure.
The hosts came into direct contact with the farmers who had joined the webinar. In many cases, the feedback was that there was a lack of adequate solutions to dispose of the slurry properly. Collection is often expensive and spreading it on the fields is harmful to the environment. The regulations are now strict, and the options are limited. In addition, the ratio of available arable land to livestock has shifted considerably over the past 15 years. Whereas in the past the amount of manure produced could be spread on the fields without hesitation, today farmers keep so many animals that the arable land is far too small to absorb the resulting wastewater.
Research projects were the focus of the ClearFox® live webinar
After the participants had expressed that they lacked a way to treat their wastewater, the two hosts presented the “BioComps” project and the follow-up project “VerMiKlär”. PPU works closely with the University of Bayreuth and, together with the Bremen Fibre Institute, has developed a biocomposite fibre in which microorganisms are woven. When these meet the wastewater, they break down the nitrogen. This reduces the impact on the soil, which is why the treated wastewater can be spread in larger quantities.
The hosts proved that this project is not just theory with “BioComps” and “VerMiKlär”. The researchers have already been working with a livestock farm near Bayreuth for several years. The resulting wastewater is the perfect basis for testing and further developing the biocomposite fibre in its application. The participants of the live webinar were mainly interested in the implementation, the application, and the cost savings for the agricultural company. The many development steps and research results showed that implementation is straightforward and cost savings are quickly achieved.
At the end of the seminar, the focus was on the exchange of contacts between the farmers and PPU. The Bayreuth-based company is looking forward to making a major contribution to wastewater treatment in agriculture in the future.
01/07/22
Wastewater heavily polluted with nitrogen accumulates in large quantities, for example in intensified agriculture or as liquid fermentation residues in biogas plants. The disposal of this wastewater is increasingly becoming a problem. The natural oxidation (nitrification) of nitrogen compounds such as proteins or ammonia produces nitrate as an end product, which is already largely responsible for the over fertilization of soils and groundwater.
Learn all about treating nitrogen-contaminated wastewater in the ClearFox® Live Webinar.
The spreading of nitrogen-containing wastewater on agricultural land must be greatly curbed in the future. At the same time, conventional biological treatment stages are overburdened with the high nitrogen loads, which is why the corresponding wastewater must not be discharged into the public disposal network. Farmers and plant operators lack options for disposing of their wastewater, so there is a great need for efficient, performance-optimised treatment technologies.
The aim of the “BioComps” research project is therefore to develop a new type of biological purification process for nitrogen-rich wastewater that can only be insufficiently processed using conventional biological processes. By means of special high-performance modules, the limiting metabolic performance, in this case nitrification, can be decoupled from the rest of the treatment process and supplemented as needed.
