Digested Organics – Membrane System

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Digested Organics – Membrane System

Harvest Energy | Capture Nutrients | Reclaim Water™

About the Company:

Digested Organics was founded in 2013 in Ann Arbor, Michigan by a team committed to changing the way our society manages waste. Businesses in all sectors of our economy tend to create some unwanted material considered to be waste, and when deciding what to do with it, they typically have two goals in mind: minimize costs and reduce environmental impact.

Digested Organics mission is to empower businesses to reclaim their waste. They focus on the conversion of organic wastes, such as food scraps, manures, greases and oils, and high strength wastewater, into clean water and clean energy using their proprietary BioEliminator™ technology and Nutrient Concentration & Water Reclamation (NCWR)™ System.  They have a scalable, modular systems that allows them to help both small and large operators, and they approach every client’s situation as a unique case that requires dedicated evaluation and customized solutions.  When it comes to waste management, there is no one-size-fits-all solution; rather, they size and configure a system for each client’s particular needs to minimize waste-associated costs, maximize value generation, and protect the environment.

In an era when landfills are quickly running out of space, waste hauling is becoming increasingly expensive, new legislation is banning the disposal of organics in landfills, and watersheds are stressed by excessive amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus, Digested Organics feels they have a solution to address the growing demand for smarter, less expensive, and greener waste management.  They hope to put their passion for waste management to work for you!

About the Solution:

Digested Organics has developed an exclusive ultrafiltration (UF) and reverse osmosis (RO) solution for wastewater nutrient concentration and water reclamation. The Nutrient Concentration & Water Reclamation (NCWR)™ System can process raw manure and digestate (from any digester, including their BioEliminator™), along with other wastewater such as landfill leachate and food/beverage wastewater, and separate the flow into clean, reusable water–ideal for facility re-use or discharge–and concentrated liquid fertilizer.  With most materials, they state that they can recover more than 70% of the total volume as clean water while concentrating the nutrients about 3x.

They have a Comprehensive Service Plan (CSP) to cover all the associated operating costs of the NCWR system with the exception of electricity. They state that with the CSP, you know upfront what it will cost you to process your wastewater.  They have indicated that in every case they’ve looked at to date, their system can substantially reduce a facility’s cost for wastewater management. They also remotely monitor the performance of your system and make adjustments as needed, as well as perform quarterly visits for inspection and tuning, provide all required consumables, and strive to ensure your 100% satisfaction.

Their two component membrane system includes the following:

A Stainless Steel Ultrafiltration Unit that removes phosphorus, TSS, and pathogens from liquid manure/digestate to create a UF Permeate, a "low nutrient irrigation water, and a concentrated liquid fertilizer.

A Two-Step Reverse Osmosis (TSRO) that provides an excellent solution for stormwater, feedlot runoff, UF permeate, DAF liquids, or third-lagoon effluent. This system can generate clean drinking/discharge water and concentrated fertilizer.

These systems can be supplied together or separately depending on the needs of the dairy.

Digested Organics 14601 Keel St. Plymouth, MI USA 734-545-8016 Visit Company Website

Solution Type

  • UF Membrane

Vendor

  • Equipment Vendor

Product

  • Concentrated Nutrients

Problem

  • GHG
  • Nitrogen
  • Pathogens
  • Phosphorous
  • Storage

To view additional information about this vendor, click below.

Solution Strengths, Weaknesses and Critical Indicators

Ultra-Filtration (UF) Membrane Based Nutrient Removal technologies can be used to reduce both suspended and dissolved solids depending on location specific requirements:

  • Produces low nutrient irrigation water and marketable products when paired with other technologies
  • Always produce a stream leaving membrane and stream rejected by membrane
  • Membranes of various size: Micro-filtration, Ultra-Filtration and Nano-Filtration each allowing various sized particles through the membrane
  • Depending on the membrane, effective pre-treatment to remove coarse, fibrous solids as well as fine suspended solids are important to system viability and reliability
  • Membrane failure and high pressure/energy costs can be a concern
  • Proven technology for nitrogen recovery, phosphorous recovery, and pathogen reduction.

Newtrient Comments/Opinions:

Membrane Based Nutrient Removal technologies:

  • Produces recycled water and marketable products when paired with other technologies
  • Always produce a stream leaving membrane and stream rejected by membrane
  • Membranes of various size: Microfiltration, Ultrafiltration and Reverse Osmosis—each allowing various sized particles through the membrane
  • Reverse Osmosis required to remove salts and achieve water suitable for discharge
  • Effective pre-treatment to remove coarse, fibrous solids as well as fine suspended solids are important to system viability and reliability
  • Membrane failure and high pressure/energy costs can be a concern
Digested Organics LLC has developed an innovative anaerobic digester and nutrient recovery system capable of producing discharge quality water.  The system, which requires the removal of coarse solids prior to treatment, uses a fixed film anaerobic digester to stabilize the manure before ultrafiltration is used to concentrate fine solids and phosphorus.  After the fine solids and phosphorus are removed, ammonia is stripped out leaving water which is then disinfected for reuse or discharge.

The Digested Organics system is a modular design allowing for easy scaling.  Due to the removal of coarse solids and short retention time, the digester may produce less biogas compared to other digester technologies treating whole manure.

In 2015, Digested Organics installed a fully integrated and modular manure treatment system (IMMS) that harvests energy and generates biogas, concentrates and captures nutrients for crops and reclaims clean water for farm use at Majestic Crossing Dairy near Sheboygan Falls, WI.  The system has been updated and refined several times since then to improve performance.  The UF system currently treats 12,000 gpd, equivalent to the manure and wastewater production of the farms milking herd. Digested Organics is testing an improved RO system at this time.

Newtrient will continue to work with Digested Organics to understand their digester/nutrient recovery system and refine the cost and performance information on the existing dairy farm installation. Newtrient has recently been informed that Digested Organics has become a subsidiary of Mott Corporation.

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