RECLAIMING WATER, ENERGY AND NUTRIENTS FROM LIVESTOCK WASTEWATER

Our main goal is to turn Livestock wastewater(LWW) from concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) e.g. swine, poultry, beef, and dairy farms to valuable products including high-quality water fit for irrigation (i.e. no bacteria and low salinity), ammonia gas for energy/fertilizer production and struvite, a slow-release fertilizer, thereby closing resource cycles in agriculture. Four objectives are designed to reach the goal of this study.Objective 1. Assess and Optimize the Integrated MOD (Microbial Electrolysis - Forward Osmosis-Membrane Distillation) System Performance:Collect and assess LWW samples from local farms;Assess and optimize organic removal from LWW using microbial electrolysis cells (MECs) coupled with electroactive forward osmosis (EFO) as a function of operational conditions;Assess and optimize solid fertilizers and ammonia recovery at the EFO interface;Assess the membrane distillation (MD) efficiency and distillate quality;Integrated system assessment.Objective 2. Evaluate the relationship between the microbial ecology in the MEC and organic removal efficiency as influenced by the charged EFO membrane:DNA/RNA extraction and amplicon sequencing;Community analysis;Ecogenomics-based growth kinetic model.Objective 3. Evaluate fouling mitigation in EFO and MD membranes:Assess fouling in EFO systems;Assess fouling in solar MD systems.Objective 4. Estimate the overall economic feasibility and environmental impacts of the integrated treatment system:Cost assessment;System performance prediction at large scales.