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Thursday, Nov. 6, 2003


Where there's muck -- there's crystals of money

A fertile mind at the cutting edge of sewage


News photo
Struvite crystals bio-extracted from sewage, shown magnified from their actual size of around 10 microns (left), and before they are combined in Fred Koch's reactor to make pellets (right) which are an excellent slow-release fertilizer. PHOTO COURTESY OF FRED KOCH; C.W. NICOL PHOTOS




News photo
Fred Koch with volunteer researcher Go Kosugi, an Iwate University graduate preparing to take another degree in Canada.

Forgive me if I take a little space to remind you that phosphorous is a non-metallic element. White or yellow phosphorous glows in the dark and is highly flammable and poisonous. Red phosphorous doesn't glow, is less flammable and not so toxic. Phosphorous, which does not occur alone in nature, was discovered in 1669 by a German called Brandt, who used heat to extract it from urine -- a very smelly process no doubt.


News photo
Fred Koch stands beside his reactor tower at the University of British Coluwhere struvite crystal pellets are extracted.

Fred, patiently trying to explain his work to this old thick head, while I sat on a battered couch in his office, scribbling notes, told me that after the microbes had digested the sludge, what was left was rich in minerals. The phosphate in the sludge is bio-available and easily released. One removal process involves adding what he called "short-chain volatile acids." When I looked dumb he said, "volatile fatty acids." When that didn't work either, he said, "For example, acetic acid." I knew that one -- like in vinegar, right? Anyway, phosphate, ammonium and small amounts of magnesium are taken out and concentrated, in crystals of magnesium ammonium phosphate -- commonly known as MAP -- a substance whose mineral name is struvite.






We talked of a future when each community could recycle sewage and farm waste to produce pure phosphates, plastic and other valuable products, while at the same time making waste water pure -- even potable enough to put back into nature's cycles without harm.


Fred compared his work with sewage to the customs of the old city of Edo, where all "night soil" was returned to the land. "But ours doesn't have that whiffy reek, and no parasites or germs," he said.

Here in Nagano, I live in a small community that is gearing up to spend billions of yen for a sewage system that won't do any of this recycling. The dairy farmers must now stop piling cow manure in small mountains on their land. This is going to cost a lot of money. I have talked about making methane for heating energy, and about other ways of recycling, but out here in never-never land such talk almost always falls on deaf ears. I know that research in Japan is paralleling Fred's work, and that a lot of intelligent folk can see that this is the way for Japan to be less polluted and less reliant on imports.

Eventually, I hope we'll get our, er . . . "stuff" together. As my old grandad used to say: "Where there's muck there's money." Fred's little white pellets will surely become very valuable indeed -- and they aren't even smelly.

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