Shafdan Wastewater Treatment Plant Will Be the First in the Region to Install an Ostara Nutrient Recovery Facility

TEL AVIV, Israel and VANCOUVER, British Columbia, September 27, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

Mey Ezor Dan announced today they will install a Nutrient Recovery Facility in partnership with Ostara at their Shafdan Wastewater Treatment Plant, located in the heart of Israel, serving a population equivalent of more than 2.5 million people in the greater Tel Aviv metropolitan area.

The Shafdan Wastewater Treatment Plant's unique method of using natural sand filtration to create reuse quality effluent water is one of only 30 projects in the world chosen by the United Nations to showcase the ability of local authorities to pro-actively deal with environmental problems. Once operational, the Ostara process will remove nutrients from Shafdan's wastewater stream and recover them to produce a high-value, continuous release fertiliser. This will be a key part of a current plant expansion project to recover more water and energy resources at the Shafdan facility.

"We are very excited to partner with Ostara to solve our nutrient removal issues. As nearly 100 per cent of our treatment water is recycled for irrigation, the Ostara process will be key to preventing phosphorus from internally recirculating within the plant, causing operational issues, as well as supporting the plant's innovative water recycling program," said Yuval Sela, Chief Engineer for the Shafdan facility.

Ostara's Pearl® process can recover 75 per cent or more of the phosphorus and up to 15 per cent of the ammonia-nitrogen from wastewater streams before they accumulate as struvite in pipes and equipment or recycle within the facility for re-treatment.  Struvite is a cement-like scale in pipes caused by an excess of nutrients, and is common in facilities performing biological nutrient removal.  Ostara's nutrient recovery system at the Shafdan Wastewater Treatment Plant will feature two Pearl® 10K reactors and employ WASSTRIP® (Waste Activated Sludge Stripping to Remove Internal Phosphorus), which enhances nutrient removal and recovery.

The new facility will have an installed production capacity of approximately 2000 tonnes of fertiliser per year and Igudan will receive revenue for every tonne of fertiliser produced, which is marketed and sold to an established network of blenders and distributors globally as Crystal Green®.

"We are very proud to partner with Mey Ezor Dan on this project as we share the same underlying value of the importance of transforming nutrients in wastewater into a precious resource," said Dan Parmar, Ostara's President and CEO. "The ability to be a key part of a solution to decrease phosphorus to improve treatment operations as part of an innovative system is a great opportunity for us."

About Ostara Nutrient Recovery Technologies Inc. & Crystal Green: 

Ostara helps protect precious water resources by changing the way cities around the world manage nutrients in wastewater streams. The company's Pearl® technology recovers phosphorus and nitrogen at municipal and industrial wastewater treatment plants and transforms them into a high-value, eco-friendly fertilizer, Crystal Green®. The process greatly reduces nutrient management costs and helps plants meet increasingly stringent discharge limits while improving operating reliability. Crystal Green is the first continuous release granular fertilizer to provide Root-Activated™ phosphorus, nitrogen and magnesium (5-28-0 with 10%Mg), and is marketed through a global network of blenders and distributors to growers in the turf and agriculture sectors. Its unique Root-Activated™ mode of action improves crop yields, enhances turf performance and significantly reduces leaching and runoff, thus protecting local waterways from nutrient pollution. Ostara operates multiple facilities throughout North America and Europe. For more information, visit http://www.ostara.com and http://www.crystalgreen.com.

About Mey Ezor Dan
Mey Ezor Dan owns the Dan Region Wastewater Treatment Plant (SHAFDAN) in Rishon Letzion, approximately 10 km south of Tel Aviv.  The plant currently treats 370,000 m^[3]/d of municipal wastewater from a population equivalent of over 2.5 million in the Greater Tel Aviv area, and is designed for biological nitrogen and phosphorus removal.

Secondary effluent from SHAFDAN is polished in a series of rapid infiltration (RI) basins in the Yavne area, and used as irrigation water in the arid southern part of Israel.

There are a number of major plant upgrades currently underway at SHAFDAN. These include a new preliminary treatment facility consisting of influent wastewater screening and vortex grit removal; a new primary treatment facility with 20 large rectangular primary clarifiers; a new digester facility with 3-stage thermophilic anaerobic digestion in 8 large digesters; and a new sludge thickening and dewatering building which includes gravity belt thickening of the waste activated sludge (WAS), and centrifuge dewatering of the digested sludge. Centrate from the thickening and dewatering building will be treated in a dedicated nitrogen and phosphorus removal facility before being returned to the treatment plant for treatment with the incoming wastewater.

Mey Ezor Dan recently completed a secondary treatment staging plan and a preliminary design for a 280,000 m^[3]/d biological nutrient removal (BNR) expansion to SHAFDAN. The expansion includes 2 multi-cell, step-feed BNR bioreactors, 12 large secondary clarifiers, and a process air building.

Media Contacts: Ostara Nutrient Recovery Technologies Inc., Debra Hadden, +1-(604)-240-3196, dhadden@ostara.com