Humic Acid Recovery: New Tech Claims Economic Benefits
By Sara Jerome,
@sarmje
A new invention out of Holland enables drinking water treatment plants to recover humic acid during treatment.
Dutch water supply company Vitens is marketing the technology as a potential money-saver for companies who use it, since humic acid is valuable in other industries.
Companies such as BioAg already market humic acid to farmers. "Humic acid is a fantastic soil conditioner and better for dry broadcast and soil/soil-less application," according to BioAg.
Vitens teamed up with consultancy Royal HaskoningDHV to handle the marketing in a partnership announced this year. The marketing campaign will stress the economic benefits of the technology while also pegging it as a sustainability tool. In 2013, Vitens won an award for its humic acid recovery tech.
"Vitens developed a technology to filter and process [humic acid] as a by-product from its drinking water treatment. At several production locations Vitens uses ion exchange to remove humus acids from the ground water. Normally the humus fraction is considered waste and disposed of," according to the Netherlands Water Partnership.
The jury at the award ceremony said the technology was a twist on conventional resource recovery technologies, since it arose out of the drinking water industry instead of the wastewater sector.
"We're used to seeing resource recovery technologies being developed in the waste water treatment sector," said Professor Cees Buisman, a jury member.
"This is rare in the drinking water field and has never been seen on this scale before. I live in the area of the Netherlands where this technology was trailed and we've always had brown water. Now we have normal clear drinking water while the removed substances are being sold as a high value product to farmers. This is the essence of a win-win situation," he continued.
In Europe, treatment facilities generally use a chemical process to extract humic acid, which occurs in coal, lignite, and well peat.
"This process has an adverse effect on the environment, and is also expensive because of transport costs. The new technology will help drinking water companies recover humic acid from their own water, while also reclaiming a sustainable and local product - easily and without any chemical effect on the environment," the release said.