Catalyst removes ammonia from industrial wastewater

Collaborators at Rice University’s George R. Brown School of Engineering, Arizona State University and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory developed the high-performance catalyst that can, with near 100 per cent efficiency, pull ammonia and solid ammonia from low levels of nitrates that are widespread in industrial wastewater and polluted groundwater.

A study led by Rice chemical and biomolecular engineer Haotian Wang shows the process converts nitrate levels of 2,000 parts per million into ammonia, followed by an efficient gas stripping process for ammonia product collection. After these treatments, the remaining nitrogen contents can be brought down to ‘drinkable’ levels as defined by the World Health Organization.  

“We fulfilled a complete water denitrification process,” graduate student Feng-Yang Chen said in a statement. “With further water treatment on other contaminants, we can potentially turn industrial wastewater back to drinking water.” 

Chen is one of three lead authors of the paper that appears in Nature Nanotechnology. 

The study is said to show promising alternative toward efficient practices for an industry that depends upon an energy-intensive process to produce over 170 million tons of ammonia per year.