VANCOUVER SUN | Vancouver’s Ostara aims to harvest from municipal waste rather than mining phosphorus
An employee tends to reactor vessels that extract phosphorous from the waste water treatment process, designed by Vancouver company Ostara Nutrient Recovery Technologies, at the Rock Creek treatment facility in Hilsboro, Oregon. The plant is owned by Clean Water Services.
July 29, 2016 – By Derrick Penner –
The Vancouver-headquartered company that has already carved a niche out of harvesting phosphorus from the sewage treatment process to make fertilizer is betting it’s on the path to bigger business with its latest installation.
“We feel we’re ready for a much more accelerated phase of growth for the company now that we’re firmly established and have all sorts of scales of facilities in operation,” said Ostara Nutrient Recovery Technologies CEO Phillip Abrary after just returning from their latest opening in Amersfoorst, Netherlands, south east of Amsterdam.
The system was installed as part of the Dutch Waterboard Vallei & Veluwe’s effort to transform its Amersfoorst sewage treatment plant into an “energy and nutrient recovery factory,” and is now one of 14 installations (12 of which are in operation) around North America and Europe.
Abrary wouldn’t reveal the value of the installation. As a private company he said they don’t disclose financial information, though he said equipment typically runs about $5 million to $10 million.
And while the Amersfoorst system is smaller than the one Ostara has in place at the Stickney water reclamation plant that serves Metropolitan Chicago’s population of 4.5 million, Abrary still counts it as an important step for his company.
“The Dutch, who are very environmentally conscious and aware, it was something to be proud of,” Abrary said.
Its growing roster of projects makes the company one of the more senior startups in Vancouver’s so-called clean-technology sector making a splash in water treatment.
Ostara was founded in 2006 as a spinoff from a research project at the University of B.C.’s civil engineering department led by professor Donald Mavinic.
In recent years Ostara has been joined by firms such as Axine Water Technologies, another startup out of UBC, which is aiming to neutralize organic compounds in industrial waste water.
Ostara’s specialty is recovering nutrients. Abrary said Mavinic discovered that phosphorus, and some nitrogen, in the liquid that comes out of anaerobic digesters, in systems that use such digesters, can be crystallized by adding magnesium and altering the pH level of the fluid. That process is referred to as precipitation. It doesn’t recover all of the phosphorus in waste. Abrary said about 50 per cent of the nutrient winds up in the liquid, and it recovers between 85 per cent and 90 per cent of that. The other half winds up in trapped in solids.
However, in Ostara’s process, the crystals within the liquid form into pellets of magnesium ammonium phosphate that can be dried and sorted.
The beauty of the material for use in fertilizers, Abrary said, is that it doesn’t dissolve in water and won’t wash out of a farmer’s field.
Instead, it is activated to release its nutrients by the acids that the roots of plants secrete when they’re trying to feed. Ostara markets it under the name Crystal Green.
“To make a high purity product that could be marketable, that’s what’s different about this,” Abrary said.
The process opens up the opportunity to create an ongoing source of revenue for their business model, he said. Ostara installs the equipment, cone-shaped reactor vessels that control the process, at municipal sewage treatment plants. Then the municipalities operate the extraction system — with ongoing monitoring and support from Ostara — and collect the crystals in one-tonne sacks.
Ostara steps back in when a system has collected quantities of Crystal Green to warrant packing up for sale. Some of the revenue goes back to the treatment-plant operator, the rest goes back to Ostara.
“So, really, we have two revenue streams,” Abrary said, between selling the technology of the recovery system, then selling the product.
“Eventually, the product stream will be greater than the technology stream,” he said.
The extraction process also has a financial benefit for the operators of treatment systems that is perhaps a bigger incentive than extracting phosphorus, argues Troy Vassos, an expert in water treatment from UBC.
“(This) is a sidebar technology to collect phosphorus so it doesn’t create problems in the plant,” Vassos said.
Vassos said plants don’t discharge the phosphorus-containing water that Ostara takes in. Without the system, they would pour that liquid back into the front end of their treatment systems to get more of it out. However, reprocessing the fluid that has already been through treatment consumes more energy and adds to a plant’s cost, Vassos said.
And phosphorus will begin to form anyway if it is allowed to run back through pipes, but in locations that might gum up a plant’s equipment and raising its maintenance costs, Vassos said.
“There’s no real magic to what (Ostara) is doing,” Vassos said, there are other companies doing it. “It’s just technology, and the ability to generate (phosphorus) crystals perhaps more economically than competitors.”
Not all treatment plants are set up in a way to accumulate phosphorus in a way that it can be harvested in a process such as Ostara’s, Vassos added, and phosphorus isn’t an environmental problem for plants in coastal locations.
The market for Ostara’s technology is increasing, Abrary said, and the company is in discussion with other potential customers in Europe and North America.
“The next thing is to double our installation base again in the next couple of years,” Abrary said, “and really to meet the anticipated demand for the product in the agricultural sector.”

Shafdan Wastewater Treatment Plant will be the first in the region to install an Ostara Nutrient Recovery Facility

City of St. Cloud to Install Ostara’s Nutrient Recovery Technology as Key Part of the City’s Nutrient Recovery and Reuse Project

Ostara to Deliver City of Atlanta Nutrient Recovery Facility Through Unique Alternative Finance Model

Ellen MacArthur Foundation | Case Study: Ostara Nutrient Recovery Technologies – Closing the Nutrient Loop

Treatment Plant Operator | Water Environment Federation Presents Awards for Operational and Design Excellence

The MWRD of Greater Chicago’s Nutrient Recovery Facility earns Top Honor from Water Environment Federation

Executive Voice Publishing | The Best of Canada Report: Honoring Canada’s 150 year Legacy of Commercial Success (as seen in Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal)

SDTC SUCCESS STORY | Partnering for real results. Meeting environmental goals. Moving cleantech to market.

Black & Veatch | World’s largest nutrient recovery facility produces valuable, environmentally friendly fertilizer

AQUA STRATEGY | A growth opportunity – how recovery of phosphorus from wastewater is bringing success for Ostara

ESEM | Wastewater converted to ecofriendly fertilizer with the help of dewatering, classifying screeners

VANCOUVER SUN | Vancouver’s Ostara aims to harvest from municipal waste rather than mining phosphorus

WATER BRIEFING | Dutch Waterboard opens Europe’s first nutrient recovery facility at Amersfoort WwTW

DUTCH WATER SECTOR | Next-step sludge treatment integrates three advanced technologies at wwtp Amersfoort, the Netherlands

SUSTAINABLE BRANDS | Chemical Plant, Nutrient Recovery Facility Bring Circular Economy One Step Closer

Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago and Ostara Open World’s Largest Nutrient Recovery Facility to Help Recover Phosphorus and Protect Mississippi River Basin

Dutch Waterboard Vallei en Veluwe and Ostara to produce high-value fertiliser, Crystal Green® at Amersfoort WWTP

Ostara is named in the 2015 Global Cleantech 100: Recognized as a Pioneer in Shaping the Future of Resource Recovery

ACWA Services partners with Ostara to offer Phosphorus Recovery Revenue Stream for UK Water Companies

Ostara is Named in the 2014 Global Cleantech 100 for 6th Straight year: Recognized as Market Leader in Waste to Wealth Technology

Ostara Sees Improved Dewaterability and Reduced Biosolids Production with Waste-activated Sludge Stripping Technology

Madison Metropolitan Sewerage District and Ostara Help Dane County Lead the Way in Reducing Nutrient Pollution

What operational benefits and political motivation persuade utilities to install nutrient recovery systems?

Ostara Nutrient Recovery Technologies wins Technology Green 15™ Award at the 2013 Deloitte Technology Fast 50™ Awards

Come, friendly bombs, don’t fall on Slough. It’s doing good for humans now: Berkshire town to launch £2m nutrient-recovery reactor

BBC World News Horizons explores why human waste is one of biggest public health issues facing world today

Ostara Named to 2013 Global Cleantech 100 List: Recognized as Market Leader in Technology with World-Changing Impact

Ostara Named to 2013 Global Cleantech 100 List: Recognized as Market Leader in Technology with World-Changing Impact

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Chicago’s Metropolitan Water Reclamation District Discuss Nutrient Recovery’s Crucial Role in Combatting Water Pollution

Black & Veatch and Ostara to Design-Build New Nutrient Recovery System for World’s Largest Water Reclamation Plant

Black & Veatch and Ostara to Design-Build New Nutrient Recovery System for World’s Largest Water Reclamation Plant

Clean Water Services and Ostara Nutrient Recovery Technologies Open World’s Largest Municipal Nutrient Recovery Facility

Hampton Roads Sanitation District and Ostara Win National Council of Public-Private Partnerships Award

Madison Metropolitan Sewerage District and Ostara Partner to Install Commercial Nutrient Recovery Facility

Virginia Wastewater Treatment Plant First In Chesapeake Bay Watershed to Recover Nutrients and Transform Them into “Green” Commercial Fertilizer

Media Alert: Unveiling of New Nutrient Recovery Facility That Will Protect Chesapeake Bay, with Keynote Speaker Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

World’s Only Slow Release, Renewable Fertiliser Begins Commercial Production – Crystal Green® Proven Effective for Turf, Nursery, Specialty Markets

HRSD Treatment Plant to Build Full-Scale Nutrient Recycling Facility Nutrients will be Recycled into ‘Green’ Commercial Fertilizer

Severn Trent First in Europe to Recycle Nutrients into “Environmentally Friendly” Commercial Fertiliser

VantagePoint Venture Partner’s Portfolio Companies Take Top Rankings in Guardian’s Global CleanTech 100

Oregon Wastewater Treatment Plant First in the U.S. to Recycle Nutrients Into ‘Green’ Commercial Fertilizer

SFPUC and Ostara Demonstrate Innovative Technology That Recycles Harmful Sewage Byproduct to Environmentally-safe Fertilizer

SFPUC and Ostara Demonstrate Innovative Technology That Recycles Harmful Sewage Byproduct to Environmentally-Safe Fertilizer

Ostara Nutrient Recovery Technologies Raises U.S. $10.5 Million to Accelerate Commercialization of CleanTech Water Treatment Process

Ostara Nutrient Recovery Technologies Inc.: Oregon Wastewater Treatment Plant Is the First in U.S. to Recycle Nutrients Into “Green” Commercial Fertilizer

Edmonton Reveals World’s First Industrial Scale Sewage Treatment Facility to Recycle Nutrients Into Environmentally-Safe Commercial Fertilizer

Clean Water Services’ wastewater treatment facility conducts trials of new environmentally-friendly technology from Canadian company
© 2017 Ostara Nutrient Recovery Technologies Inc. | Home | Contact Us