Arris Blog

Arris was successful in obtaining funding through the South Australian Government ‘Small Business Innovation Research’ grant program. There were two goals of the project: firstly, to capture phosphorus (P) from effluent water at a SA Water Wastewater Treatment Plant to lower nutrient loading and eutrophication of waters that feed into the Gulf St Vincent; and secondly, to capture this P in a bioavailable format so that it could be recycled as a nutrient source for plant growth.

Waste product reuse site as a structural soil enhancer for tree growth in urban landscaping.

Arris was able to find a material that could sequester exceptional amounts of P out of the effluent water (>95% P removal). Better still, this material is a waste product that is currently dumped to landfill, hence, this created a beneficial reuse for a material that would otherwise end up in landfill. A secondary benefit of the material was its ability to remove boron (B) from effluent water, with >50% reductions in B observed. Given the sequestration of P was so efficient, it could not be made readily bioavailable again as a source of P for plant growth, and low concentrations of P in the effluent water meant extracting the P again would not be an economically viable option. However, the P sequestering material has been shown to be an excellent structural soil enhancer, enhancing aeration and water movement in soil allowing deeper root penetration.

Water treatment test bench trialling multi-media water treatment options at the wastewater treatment plant.

Overall, this project highlighted a significant reuse opportunity for a waste material that could provide water treatment to remove P and B, with an option to then install this material under roadways and verges to provide a structural soil enhancement to support tree growth.

The funding received for this project enabled Arris to develop a test bench which allows us to undertake replicated multi-media water treatment column trials. This adds significant value to the targeted water treatment solutions we can develop for our clients.

This is an update to an earlier post that you can read here.