ABOUT BOOST

Our company offers a patented process for treatment of sewage sludge and agricultural wastes. It allows municipal wastewater treatment plants to reduce the amount of sludge they generate and significantly lower their operational costs as a result. In a similar manner, the process allows for sustainable manure management in agricultural sector. In addition to cost savings, the process allows for enhanced energy and nutrient recovery from wastewater which can be a source of extra revenue. Our company provides custom process design and works with equipment suppliers and consulting engineers to install and commission the technology for each client. 

Boost Environmental Systems Inc. has an exclusive license to use, sell, and sub-license the technology worldwide.

Solutions for Municipal Wastewater Plants

-Reduce the amount of disposable sludge by over 70%
-Save 40-60% costs of sludge and biosolids management
-Increase anaerobic digestion rates by up to 50%
-Reduce digester footprint + increase its capacity
-Produce Class A biosolids
-Recover more energy and nutrients
-Reduce your carbon footprint and gain carbon credits

Sustainable manure management solutions

-Reduce the volume of manure by up to 50%
-Increase capacity of your anaerobic digester
-Easily digest third party’s fats, grease and oil (FOG)
-Produce more biogas
-Divert excess nutrients away from land application
-Produce a valuable fertilizer from waste
-Reduce your carbon footprint and gain carbon credits

Ignite Fall 2017 Award Winner

Agritech Innovation Challenge 2017

Our Team

Asha Srinivasan
Chief Technology Officer, Co-Founder and Director

Asha Srinivasan

Dr. Srinivasan has expertise in environmental management, wastewater treatment processes, and dielectric heating processes for nutrient and energy recovery from organic slurries. She has been working for over 4 years towards pre-commercialization of the IMPACT™ process for sustainable waste management in the wastewater treatment industry.

Victor Lo
Co-Founder and Director

Victor Lo

Professor at UBC Civil Engineering, Dr. Lo is the principal investigator and co-inventor of the IMPACT™ process – a microwave-peroxide technology for treatment of organic slurries. He has over 40 years of experience in biological process applications for waste treatment and utilization, including aerobic and anaerobic treatment, nutrient recovery from food processing and agricultural wastewater, and management of solid wastes such as composting and anaerobic digestion.

Ping H. Liao
Co-Founder and Director

Ping H. Liao

Co-inventor of the IMPACT™ process, Dr. Liao’s expertise is anaerobic digestion, nutrient recovery and pilot-scale system design, including 40+ years of experience in R&D, process design, and consulting for agricultural and waste treatment industries.

Mike Manion
Executive-in-Residence

Mike Manion

Mike Manion is an Executive-in-Residence from BCIC. He has vast executive experience in senior executive positions for a number of Canadian agriculture corporations.

Our Solution

The IMPACT™ process is a patented technology for treatment of organic slurries such as sewage sludge and manure. It is a microwave enhanced advanced oxidation process that combines microwave irradiation and hydrogen peroxide to heat and treat organic slurries. The process has been successfully tested at pilot scale for treatment of sewage sludge and various animal waste slurries.

OUR ADVANTAGES

Efficient Solids Management

  • Reduce sludge handling and disposal costs by 40-60%
  • Decreases final volume of sludge and/or manure to be disposed
  • Substantial destruction of the waste slurry’s solids
  • Convert less biodegradables into readily biodegradable materials from dairy wastes

Enhanced Energy Recovery

  • Improves methane production from anaerobic digesters by 20%
  • Speed up the rate of digestion
  • Reduces a digester’s necessary size

Disinfection Capability

  • Sterilize biologically active waste streams
  • Disinfection of fecal coliforms in sewage sludge
and dairy manure
  • Produces Class A Biosolids for land application

Improved Nutrient Release & Recovery

  • Releases nutrients (N, P, K, Mg, Ca) into solution for further resource recovery
  • Solubilizes over 75% of phosphorous from sewage sludge for increased struvite recovery
  • Up to 90% of phosphorus solubilization from dairy manure for struvite recovery

The IMPACT™ process has a simple design and operates at lower temperature (90-120°C) and pressure, compared to the existing thermal hydrolysis processes in municipal wastewater treatment. The existing processes in the market are, in general, operated at high temperatures (150-180°C), high pressures (600-1000kPa), and incur a very high initial capital expenditure, as well as high operation and maintenance costs. The IMPACT™ is a simpler, more efficient and cost-effective process than other processes for sludge reduction.

Download our technological brochure here.

For Wastewater Treatment Plants:

The IMPACT™ process allows for improved sludge management practices through reduction of volume of disposable sludge by over 70% and improvement of sludge biodegradability. This significantly lowers overall operational costs and defers major treatment process upgrades. An average size treatment plant serving 100,000-200,000 population equivalent could save up to $0.5 million per year in operational costs and avoid $10 million expenses in process upgrades as a result of implementing the IMPACT™ process for an investment of $0.8-1 million with a payback of 2-4 years. The IMPACT is a simpler, more efficient and cost-effective process than other processes for sludge reduction. In addition, it offers the opportunity of enhanced resource recovery from waste, which can be a supplementary source of revenue.

Process Flow Diagram

For Sustainable Manure Management:

Installation of an integrated dairy waste treatment and resource recovery facility (IMPACT™, Struvite Crystallization, Anaerobic Digestion) in a dairy farm would generate $23,000 to 53,000 per year from sale of struvite fertilizer based on 120 lactating cows. This would prevent 2.7 tonnes of phosphate per year from being applied on the farmland while generating up to 19 tonnes of struvite every year. Environmental benefits will include preventing excess nutrient build up in the soil, balanced crop nutrition, preventing eutrophication in water bodies and avoiding ground water contamination. In addition to these, approximately 1700 tonnes of CO2 equivalent/year of greenhouse gas emissions will be reduced. On the whole, positive impacts on nutrient management planning for the dairy farms will be substantial.

Journal Articles

Continuous-Flow Microwave Enhanced Oxidation Process for Treating Sewage Sludge

The microwave-enhanced advanced oxidation (MW/H2O2-AOP) treatment of sewage sludge in a continuous-flow 915 MHz microwave system was studied. A higher H2O2 dosage at the same flow rate resulted in better solids disintegration in terms of higher soluble chemical oxygen demand. The highest soluble chemical oxygen demand concentration of 5174 mg/L was obtained at a dosage of 0.005 L/L (0.5 % v/v). A higher soluble chemical oxygen demand was obtained at a higher flow rate with the same H2O2 dosage. A substantial amount of soluble phosphorus (over 60 % of total phosphorus content) was produced for all treatments, regardless of H2O2 dosage. A first-order reaction kinetics of soluble chemical oxygen demand was proposed in this study. Real-time energy consumption corresponding to performance efficacy, which provides a realistic assessment of the process efficiency, was calculated. Energy consumption was found to vary between 0.22–0.29 kWh/L of sludge treated. The results demonstrated that a continuous-flow 915 MHz microwave system resulted in high treatment efficiency in terms of nutrient release, solids disintegration, and low energy consumption, which is suitable for real-time industrial applications.

Read the full article here.

Recovery of phosphorus from dairy manure: a pilot scale study

Phosphorus was recovered from dairy manure via a microwave-enhanced advanced oxidation process (MW/H2O2-AOP) followed by struvite crystallization in a pilot-scale continuous flow operation. Soluble phosphorus in dairy manure increased by over 50% after the MW/H2O2-AOP, and the settleability of suspended solids was greatly improved. More than 50% of clear supernatant was obtained after microwave treatment, and the maximum volume of supernatant was obtained at a hydrogen peroxide dosage of 0.3% and pH 3.5. By adding oxalic acid into the supernatant, about 90% of calcium was removed, while more than 90% of magnesium was retained. As a result, the resulting solution was well suited for struvite crystallization. Nearly 95% of phosphorus in the treated supernatant was removed and recovered as struvite.

Read the full article here.

Application of Microwave Oxidation Process for Sewage Sludge Treatment in a Continuous-Flow System

A pilot-scale continuous-flow 915-MHz microwave enhanced advanced oxidation (MW/H2O2-AOPMW/H2O2-AOP) treatment system was specifically designed and used for the treatment of sewage sludge. The focus of this study was to examine the interrelationship between chemical changes and physical transformation on the treated sewage sludge, and to perform energy analysis of the treatment system. A higher temperature and/or higher hydrogen peroxide dosage resulted in higher levels of solubilized total phosphate and total Kjeldahl nitrogen, an increase in chemical oxygen demand solubilization and volatile fatty acids production, reduced total suspended solids, and improved sludge dewaterability and settleability. The results demonstrated that this treatment system was well designed and could be used for the treatment of sewage sludge effectively. The scaled-up version of this MW/H2O2-AOPMW/H2O2-AOP treatment system could readily be implemented for real-time application in wastewater treatment plants.

Read the full article here.

Microwave treatment of dairy manure for resource recovery: Reaction kinetics and energy analysis

A newly designed continuous-flow 915 MHz microwave wastewater treatment system was used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the microwave enhanced advanced oxidation process (MW/H2O2-AOP) for treating dairy manure. After the treatment, about 84% of total phosphorus and 45% of total chemical oxygen demand were solubilized with the highest H2O2 dosage (0.4% H2O2 per %TS). The reaction kinetics of soluble chemical oxygen demand revealed activation energy to be in the range of 5–22 kJ mole−1. The energy required by the processes was approximately 0.16 kWh per liter of dairy manure heated. A higher H2O2 dosage used in the system had a better process performance in terms of solids solubilization, reaction kinetics, and energy consumption. Cost-benefit analysis for a farm-scale MW/H2O2-AOP treatment system was also presented. The results obtained from this study would provide the basic knowledge for designing an effective farm-scale dairy manure treatment system.

Read the full article here:

News

May 2018

  • Our CTO Asha Srinivasan is named one of 13 Canadian environmentalists and innovators changing the Earth for the betterRead more.

March 2018

  • Bioenterprise helps Boost to explore market opportunities in agriculture.  Read more.
  • Améliorer la gestion du fumier et des eaux usées avec IMPACTLire la suite.

October 2017

July 2017

June 2017

June has been an exciting month for us!

  • Vancouver Startup makes Waves Treating Manure and Sewer Sludge. Check out our Video on BNN!
  • Vancouver Entrepreneur to Receive MITACS Award for Slurry Treatment. Read more
  • Canadian Entrepreneurs Recognized Helping Solve Critical Health Care. Read more
  • Entrepreneur Behind Vancouver Startup Recognized. Read more

May 2017

  • Boost Environmental Systems – A UBC Innovation Snapshot. Read more

March 2017

November 2016

  • IC-IMPACTS Project: An Innovative Technology for Resource Recovery from Wastewater.  Read more

May 2014

  • UBC Civil Engineering researchers work toward a sustainable waste management system for the wastewater treatment industry.  Read more

June 2011

  • Canadian research examines removal of phosphorus from manure. Read more

Our Profile

We are proud to be a Canadian company and offer technology developed in Canada.  Please visit our Canadian Company Capabilities Profile