To ensure water quality and safety under the Clean Water Act, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates the amount of various types of nutrients that can be discharged from point sources into nearby lakes, streams or reservoirs. For the poultry industry, this means reducing the amount of phosphate (the inorganic form of phosphorus) in processing wastewater prior to discharge. When present in excessive amounts, phosphorus causes the growth of algae and other organisms that negatively affect the environmental and chemical balance of nearby water bodies.
In most poultry processing plants, aluminum, iron or calcium-based coagulants are used to remove phosphate from wastewater. This process known as chemical precipitation has its drawbacks due in large part to the costs associated with the use of metal salts and the resulting biosolids, which create an additional treatment problem. Could there be a more efficient and cost-effective way to remove phosphate? Researchers at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) believe magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) may hold promise.