Nutrient Removal

Phosphorus and nitrogen are the two nutrients removed from municipal wastewater. Normally it is only necessary to reduce one of them, and in quite a few cases neither.

Phosphorus

As long as there has been a demand for phosphorus removal, our products have been a part of the water treatment. We made our first tailor-made product for this purpose as early as the late 1960s. Since then we have developed and broadened our product portfolio by adding a number of aluminium- and iron-based coagulants. We offer products for removal of phosphorus before, during or after the biological treatment. If no biological treatment exists, we can offer products for this purpose too.

In many cases our products are not only used for phosphorus removal. For instance, at many customer plants our coagulants are not only used to remove phosphorus, but also odour. To further improve the multi-purpose properties of our products, inorganic coagulants can be combined with our organic coagulants or flocculants (commonly known as polymers).

Nitrogen

Nitrogen in wastewater mainly takes the form of ammonia, an ion that is difficult to precipitate. Nitrogen is therefore normally removed in a biological process consisting of two steps – nitrification and denitrification. By using our coagulants and flocculants before the biological treatment, the nitrification capacity is increased within existing volumes. We also offer carbon sources for the denitrification process in many regions. Our products support the operation of a reliable and compact nitrogen removal process.