Algae Agonist

Algae blooms are suffocating the Chesapeake Bay. Richmond’s Infilco Degremont is perfecting biological filters that remove the nutrients the noxious organisms feed upon.

In the summer of 2003, one of the largest “dead zones” on record covered 40 percent of the Chesapeake Bay. Massive blooms of algae – some mahogany red, some as green as Gatorade -- blotted the surface, then died and sank to the bay floor. The decaying mass fed a host of microorganisms that sucked most of the oxygen from the water. Throughout the zone, oxygen fell below the level required to keep striped bass alive. In places, the oxygen depletion was so severe that shad, yellow perch, crabs and oysters died off. In the worst spots, only worms and other low-metabolism creatures could survive.

The algae feed off nitrogen and phosphorous from farms, urban run-off, air pollution and, most visibly, wastewater treatment plants. To combat the decline of what once was one of the most bountiful estuaries in the world, Virginia and other states in the Chesapeake Bay watershed committed four years ago to reduce the volume of nitrogen entering the bay and its tributaries by 110 million pounds per year, or nearly 40 percent, by 2010. A set of tighter rules, wending its way through the regulatory system, should go into effect in late 2005 or early 2006.

Fairly or not, much of the clean-up burden will fall upon wastewater treatment plants that are a major source of the nutrients. The potential cost of retrofitting or building some 300 treatment plants could run into the billions of dollars, and the race is on to develop a technology that allows municipalities to meet the standards without crippling them financially. A Richmond, Virginia, company, Infilco Degremont, may have the most cost-effective answer: a process that uses naturally occurring bacteria to ingest the nutrients as the water flows past.

Robert Kelly, director of Infilco Degremont’s R&D lab in downtown Richmond, says he knows of only one competing technology that can reliably meet the proposed standard of three milligrams of nitrogen per liter of water. But he believes his product, BIOFOR, has an edge. Because BIORFOR installations operate more efficiently at higher filtration rates, they don't take up as much space – a crucial consideration for existing water treatment facilities that typically have little free room for expansion.

Water treatment doesn’t capture the public’s imagination like gene splicing or nano-tech, but it is a multibillion-dollar business with global reach. There are only a handful of players pushing the envelope of new technology, one them being the $43 billion-a-year Suez group, the French conglomerate that owns Infilco Degremont. Degremont maintains two water research centers: one in Paris and one in Richmond. “Our mission,” says Kelly, “is to innovate new technologies for drinking water and wastewater treatment.”

The 13-person Richmond lab, supplemented periodically by college interns, takes the corporate lead on R&D related to the biological filtration for removal of nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphates, ultraviolet disinfection of microbes, and micro-bubble flotation to separate minute solids from liquids. Through Degremont’s globe-spanning operations, innovations originating in Richmond migrate around the world.

Infilco Degremont originated as the International Filter Company of Chicago in 1894. Acquired by Paris-based Degremont in 1974, the main quarters of the U.S. affiliate now are located in the west end of Richmond. Earlier this year, the American operation changed its name from Ondeo Degremont to Infilco Degremont in recognition of its strong U.S. water treatment equipment heritage.

The Richmond operation designs, engineers, manufactures and provides services to municipal and industrial water treatment systems. Solutions encompass both chemical-physical treatment and biological systems. Says Ilan Wilf, vice president of sales and marketing: “We are known across the U.S. for our emerging technologies, engineering excellence, and customer-driven solutions.”

The Degremont Group’s European operations are more oriented toward DBO, or the “design, build and operate” end of the business. The focus there is mainly on new plants. The U.S. affiliate is more geared to providing engineering services and developing new products. Serving markets around the world, the company has a major presence in the Middle East. In the 1970s and 1980s, the company installed more water and wastewater facilities in Iraq than any other country, and it remained engaged in that troubled country as part of the United Nations-sponsored Oil-for-Food program.  

The Richmond R&D operation operation – known as Denard, for Degremont North American R&D Center – plays a key role in fulfilling Infilco’s global corporate strategy. The lab analyzes drinking water and wastewater quality as a service to customers, works with the commercial side of the business to set up pilot plants to demonstrate the efficacy of new technologies and, of course, continually refines water treatment technologies.

Located in the Virginia Biotechnology Research Park, the Infilco R&D lab belongs to a growing cluster of life-sciences research operations in the Richmond region. In the research park itself are the corporate R&D facilities of Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Science Applications International Corp., and the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS).

Adjacent to the medical campus of Virginia Commonwealth University, the park houses more than 50 biosciences companies employing more than 1,350 people in fields such as drug development, medical diagnostics, biomedical engineering, forensics and environmental analysis. This vibrant mix of life sciences companies, combined with the proximity of VCU and Richmond’s low cost of doing business, says Robert Skunda, CEO of the research park, has contributed to Richmond’s emergence as a recognized player in the life sciences arena.

“We’re really impressed with Denard’s research on de-nitrification,” says Renee Robins, vice president-business development for the Greater Richmond Partnership, the region’s economic development organization. “First of all, it addresses one of the most pressing environmental issues we face in Virginia, the eutrophication of the Chesapeake Bay."

But equally exciting, Robins says, is the potential to create a technology with global applications. Dead zones are killing fish, shell fish and crustaceans in rivers and estuaries on every continent, destroying a vital source of seafood. “By making it affordable to take the nitrogen and phosphorous out of waste water, Infilco and Denard can make life better for millions of people around the world.”

Infilco calls its biological filtration technology BIOFOR. Conceptually, the process is simple. Biological filtration is one of the final steps in the wastewater treatment process, coming into play after conventional techniques have already removed contaminants visible to the naked eye. Microbes consume the nitrogen-bearing compounds in the water, metabolize them, and ultimately release harmless nitrogen gas into the atmosphere.

The devil is in the details. Waste water is pumped through a large, vertical cell filled with a “support matrix,” jargon for finely crushed rock to which the bacteria adheres and the water passes through. Pebble-sized rock of varying specifications support different types of bacterial populations. The selection of the proper growth medium is crucial. Right now, Infilco has to import much of the support matrix, a type of expanded clay or shale, all the way from Europe. “We’re paying to ship rocks across the ocean,” notes Kelly wryly. His team is looking for alternative U.S. suppliers to improve the cost efficacy of the technology.

Depending on the type of microbial populatoin desired, Infilco tweaks other variables such as water temperature, the oxygen level, the rate of water flow through the filter cell, and the frequency with which the build-up of bacterial biomass is removed through backwash. Says Kelly: “The idea is to provide growth conditions that allow a select group of [nitrogen-eating] organisms to out-compete other organisms."

In most cases, says Kelly, the biological filters are naturally seeded – the filters host bacteria naturally found in the waste water. No genetically modified monster microbes here. Occasionally, Infilco jump starts bacterial growth with freeze-dried organisms.

Operating in more than 100 installations globally, BIOFOR technology is a well-established wastewater treatment process. Infilco now is testing its latest refinement, the BIOFOR DN technology, at a treatment facility in New Rochelle, N.Y., with the goal of meeting the three milligrams-per-liter standard. This pilot project, lasting six months to a year, is the first step in moving the BioFor process from the lab into the real world, Kelly says. Once the plant demonstrates that it can meet the strict new standard, BIOFOR DN will be ready for prime time.

Meanwhile, Infilco is fine tuning a phosphorous removal technology that uses dissolved air flotation in a test at Chesterfield County’s Proctor’s Creek plant. The concept is an old one, but Degremont's design allows it to operate at six to ten times the rate of convention designs, allowing it to be installed on a much smaller footprint, Kelly explains.

When it comes to cleaning up the Bay, says Chuck Epes, communications coordinator for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, “Nitrogen is the 800-pound gorilla.” Phosphates, he adds, are “a 300-pound gorilla.” He’s unfamiliar with Infilco’s NIOFOR process, so he can’t comment on it. But, given the regulations coming down the pike, he says, any technology that helps municipalities and manufacturers meet the impending regulations at lower cost “is certainly welcome news."

-- September 2004