Project Description:
Animal Rendering Condensate Wastewater (RCWW) produced by slaughterhouses is rich with ammonia, oils, phosphorus, and other components. When RCWW is dumped into a body of water, algal blooms and dead zones are likely to form and cause significant environmental damage. This project presents an approach of utilizing zeolite ion exchange for ammonium removal in the downstream processing stages of the RCWW treatment process and makes a comparison to other common methods such as distillation and reverse osmosis. Aspen was used to simulate the zeolite exchange and distillation, and reverse osmosis data was used to compare. The zeolite column is shown to be the cheapest by about $25k per year compared to the next best separation method.
