SBIR-STTR Award

This project will investigate an innovative patent-pending naturally derived polysaccharidehydrogel technology to significantly reduce soluble phosphorus content in agricultural water streams. This investigation will accomplish the following goals: 1. Confirm the ability of the identified polysaccharide hydrogel technology to significantly reduce soluble phosphorus content in agricultural and constructed wetland applications. Additionally exploration of the impact on other constituent reduction (such as nitrogen) will also be determined 2. Investigate multiple polysaccharide hydrogel feedstocks with an emphasis on minimizing overall cost with maximum performance characteristics3. Identify key degradation characteristics of fully saturated hydrogel media4. Identify the reuse potential of saturated hydrogel media and post-treated water. This would include the recovery of hydrogel feed stocks for possible reuse and5.Establish economics around application of the hydrogel technology; these economics toinclude annual operating costs capital costs and Net Present Value based on a 10-yearbasis for both agricultural wastewater treatment and constructed wetlands.In pursuit of the above objectives bench scale testing (1-10kg scale) will be conducted to develop time-based phosphorus removal profiles using waste streams representative of targeted applications. Specifically anaerobic lagoon wastewater streams from poultry and swine or dairy operations will be evaluated to develop sensitivity to phosphorus loading. From these evaluations the most promising candidate (based on cost and performance conclusions obtained) will be deployed in a constructed wetland application where flow gates are employed to develop multiple month field operation to validate performance. Development of a cost-effective passive phosphorus solution will support the goal of developing innovative tools to aid in water quality improvement and conservation in agricultural and watershed applications.