VaSA System
VaSA technology brings a solution to the bottlenecks of ammonia recovery from wastewater and efficient production of renewable energy. When VaSA is used for treatment of ammonia-rich wastewater, it shifts the paradigm of wastewater treatment from costly ammonia removal to profitable ammonia recovery. VaSA is one of the most efficient ammonia removal technologies currently on the market. The ammonia could further be processed into ammonium sulfate.
Ammonium Sulfate Fertilizer
Vacuum Stripping and Absorption (VaSA) couples vacuum thermal stripping and acid absorption to pull ammonia out of ammonia-rich wastewater (e.g., anaerobic digestate, landfill leachate, and source-separated urine) to form ammonium sulfate granules, a sellable nitrogen fertilizer.
Increase Methane Production
Our VaSA Technology improves anaerobic digestion by avoiding ammonia inhibition to methane-producing microorganisms, thus enabling stable anaerobic digestion at a higher organic loading rate. The vacuum-assisted low-temperature thermal and mild alkali treatment in the VaSA process enhances solids solubilization and biodegradability of digestate, thus further increasing methane production as stripped digestate is returned to the digesters. When employing VaSA to recover ammonia from digester effluent, it additionally improves dewaterability of digester effluent and raises biosolids from Class B to A.
Treat Landfill Leachate
VaSA is a perfect fit for treating ammonia-ladened landfill leachate and saving leachate disposal cost. It fills the gap of an efficient, scalable ammonia recovery technology. VaSA can be adopted with modular designs, providing operational ease and flexibility of scaling up. Stripping ammonia out of a wastewater for production of ammonium sulfate can be a sustainable alternative to the energy-intensive Haber-Bosch process for ammonia synthesis, which consumes 3-5% of the world’s natural gas production and accounted for 2.5% of the total U.S. greenhouse gas emission from industrial processes and product use sector in 2014. Due to the vacuum-assisted thermal and alkali treatment in the VaSA process, VaSA may also be employed for biomass pretreatment for biorefinery and biofuel production.