BlueInGreen Helps Improve Wastewater Collection in Houston

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BlueInGreen's SDOX unit in a Houston neighborhood

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – BlueInGreen LLC, a company affiliated with the University of Arkansas, is midway through a pilot project to help the city of Houston curb problems with its wastewater collection.

The water-quality management firm located at the Arkansas Research and Technology Park in Fayetteville, Ark., is using its supersaturated dissolved oxygen system, which the firm has trademarked as SDOX, to ameliorate the city’s wastewater as it is piped to its treatment plants. The University of Arkansas System's statewide Division of Agriculture holds the patent on the system.

Jason Iken, senior assistant director for Houston’s wastewater operations, said BlueInGreen’s SDOX system has the potential to manage odor and mitigate corrosion issues in the city’s wastewater infrastructure.

“This use of oxygen, versus traditional chemical dosing, is another tool for the city to use in its continuous improvement efforts to provide value to the rate-paying customer,” Iken said.

Clay Thompson, senior engineer for BlueInGreen, said Houston — the nation’s fourth-largest city — agreed to a six-month installation of the company’s SDOX units at two locations in the Texas metropolis.

“The city has a lot of systems that collect the wastewater and pipe and pump it to their wastewater treatment plants,” Thompson said. “Along that travel time the water becomes very odorous and corrosive.”

BlueInGreen is three months into the project, and so far the results have been positive, Thompson said. If the trend continues, Houston would be interested in expanding BlueInGreen’s services, he said.

Each SDOX unit draws small amounts of water from the source into a tank, where the unit saturates the water with oxygen before pumping it back. It’s an efficient, environmentally friendly and cost-effective way to put oxygen into water, and BlueInGreen’s unique technology has earned it national recognition. In 2010, the company received the Innovative Technology Award from the Water Environment Federation.

In wastewater treatment, oxygen is a vital ingredient, because it supports the bacteria that break down waste products. The more oxygen is available in the water, the more efficiently the bacteria function. Oxygen also helps the bacteria smell better, because when bacteria run out of oxygen, they switch to anaerobic processes, which produce unpleasant odors. The company’s technology is currently in use at the Noland Wastewater Treatment Facility in Fayetteville, Ark.

The University of Arkansas System holds the patent on the SDOX invention and issued an exclusive license to BlueInGreen. The company, which employs seven University of Arkansas graduates, was founded in 2004 by U of A professors Scott Osborn and Marty Matlock. It is a portfolio company of VIC Technology Venture Development, a private technology venture development firm based at the Arkansas Research and Technology Park.