Nijhuis To Build Largest Industrialized Botanical Garden Wastewater Treatment Plant

Nijhuis Industries is to build the largest industrialized botanical garden wastewater treatment plant, together with its technology partner Organica Water. The project is for the world's largest furniture retailer, and will treat the wastewater from a high-profile shopping center in Russia. Nijhuis will integrate the Organica Food Chain Reactor (FCR) in a turn-key 1,000 m³/d treatment facility with Nijhuis pre- and post-treatment including advanced technologies to purify up to river water discharge quality.

Seamless integration of a WWTP in an urban area
The new botanical wastewater treatment plant, with odorless operation and beautiful flora and fauna, is situated in a glass house and ensures the seamless integration of the treatment facility in the urban area within the shopping center complex, including a botanical garden visitors' center.

The pre-treatment solution is executed with Nijhuis screening and Dissolved Air Flotation (DAF) units and will remove the large particles from the wastewater prior to entering the Organica FCR. After the secondary treatment through the FCR, CarboPure (CP) and UV disinfection units (NUV) will polish the effluent to the stringent Russian discharge requirements. The excess sludge will be treated with a Drum Filter (NDF) and Screw Press (NSP).

About the botanical garden solution
A botanical garden is a highly creative approach to wastewater treatment. The garden facility utilizes active biofilms on natural(plant) and/or engineered root structures (biomodules), all in a fully-enclosed, odorless facility. The result is a solution which offers a significantly reduced physical footprint and lower operational and infrastructure costs when compared to conventional solutions.

The biological reactors are arranged in a cascade configuration, each with specially designed biomodules, in order to optimize the development of distinct ecosystems in each step of the treatment process. As a result of the cascade design the composition of the ecosystem fixed in the biofilm changes from reactor to reactor, adapting itself to the decreasing nutrient concentrations, and thus maximizing the decomposition of contaminants.

A compact, odorless and garden-like facility
Generally, when people think of wastewater treatment, they envision large concrete buildings located far from population centers, and big open basins emitting foul odors. The botanical garden flips this idea upside-down, offering customers a compact, odorless, garden-like facility which produces a high-quality, reusable, effluent. The attractive look and feel of the botanical garden solution further enhances this, as the facility can be used not just as a WWTP but also a scientific, educational, and recreational space for the community. This gives a botanical garden solution utility far beyond just efficient wastewater treatment enabling it to be located virtually anywhere, which is why it was chosen for this critical project.

3D botanical WWTP tour
A 3D tour of the new botanical wastewater treatment plant is already available on YouTube: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4LajUpv91M&)

About Nijhuis Industries
Nijhuis Industries delivers solid solutions for sustainable water use & resource recovery, with the highest level of intelligent innovations across a wide range of industries. We meet today’s challenges as well as those of the future, as a response towards a CIRCULAR economy in a ‘fluid’ world. To accommodate the customer requirements, Nijhuis offers customized installations, to create profit out of (waste)water, process water and waste.

At Nijhuis Industries it is our mission to help customers to reduce, reuse and recover water and resources to create profit. We help our valued customers to meet their increasingly demanding sustainability requirements, lower their environmental footprint, combine productivity and energy efficiency and reduce life cycle cost at the same time.

About Organica Water
Organica Water is a global provider of innovative solutions for the treatment and recycling of wastewater. Over the past two decades Organica has developed a truly unique approach, enabling customers all over the world to address urban water challenges in a cost and resource efficient manner. Organica’s solutions are all founded on the fundamental belief that nature provides the most efficient means to treat wastewater, offering significant cost savings compared to other solutions, and harmonious integration into modern urban lifestyles.