FROM: James D. Herberg, General Manager
Originator: Rob Thompson, Assistant General Manager
SUBJECT:
title
SUPERCRITICAL WATER OXIDATION RESEARCH PROJECT
end
GENERAL MANAGER'S RECOMMENDATION
recommendation
RECOMMENDATION:
Information item.
body
BACKGROUND
The Orange County Sanitation District (OC San) collects and processes 185 million gallons of wastewater every day. Cleaning this water results in concentrated solids called sludge and scum. These energy rich solids are processed through anaerobic digestion to create methane-rich gas and biosolids. The methane-rich gas is cleaned and used in the treatment plants to make electricity and heat. Biosolids are the residual material commonly used in the agricultural industry as a soil amendment.
OC San continues to actively pursue management options to maintain a long-term program that promotes beneficial use of biosolids. In accordance with the principles of its biosolids management policy (Resolution No. OCSD 13-03), OC San maintains a diverse portfolio of biosolids management options that utilize multiple contractors, facilities, and product markets, while maintaining fail-safe, back-up options. This portfolio ensures that OC San has reliable options for managing the material should regulations, market conditions, severe weather, or other situations impact any one management option.
Staff has also been following a new technology for solids treatment for several years that takes advantage of a unique property of water at high temperature and pressure. The technology presents an opportunity to convert all complex organic material (including plastics and PFAS) to more basic and benign compounds like nitrogen, water, carbon dioxide, and mineral salts.
A new company, 374Water Systems, Inc. (374Water), with a novel, simpler process design, was moving to scale-up the process technology from a one-ton-per-day unit patented and operating at Duke University in North Carolina. Assistant General Man...
Click here for full text