Vancouver, Canada-based Ostara Nutrient Recovery Systems is the latest in a series of companies to make its business converting waste into useful products -- in this case by removing nutrients, like phosophorus, from wastewater and recycling them into fertilizer. The water treatment firm has just raised $10.5 million in private equity financing from VantagePoint Venture Partners and Foursome Investments Limited.
Ostara will use the funding to begin installing its technology in North American wastewater treatment plants. The first U.S. plant to get the technology will be the Durham Advanced Wastewater Treatment Facility in Tigard, Oregon. Clean Water Services, the water utility that owns and manages the facility, will operate the $2.5 million multi-reactor plant and share revenue from the sale of the fertilizer, called Crystal Green (which is sold to farmers and golf courses).
The company has been using the technology at an Edmonton, Alberta water treatment plant since 2007. The technology, developed by scientists at the University of British Columbia, mixes the wastewater and a catalyst at high speed in a fluidized bed reactor to recover ammonia and phosphate (up to 85 percent) from the liquids in the form of struvite, a slow-release fertilizer in granular form.
By taking out the excess nutrients from wastewater, the technology helps prevent clogging and reduces the amount of energy needed to operate the pump. This results in lower costs and a higher overall capacity for the plant's operators, company officials say.
Ostara's technology could soon find its way into several more commercial-scale plants, including ethanol and food processing facilities, in Canada and the U.S. Up to 400 municipalities and plants in North America, and 500 in Europe, could also become future customers, the company says.