Patent ID: 8097168

Claim:
A treatment method for a wastewater stream containing solids and liquids with organic and macronutrients suitable for growth of plants, algae, and photo biomass, comprising: a. injecting sulfur dioxide into the wastewater stream b. holding the sulfur dioxide-treated wastewater stream for the dwell time required to partially agglomerate wastewater solids, acid leach any heavy metals from the solids into wastewater stream liquids, and disinfect the wastewater stream liquids, c. separating solids for disposal or reuse from the sulfur dioxide-treated wastewater stream liquids, d. pH adjusting the sulfur dioxide-treated wastewater liquids to reduce the biocidal properties of any free SO 2 , bi-sulfite, and sulfite and provide a pH required for environmental biological treatment, and e. passing the pH adjusted sulfur dioxide-treated wastewater liquids through an environmental biological system to grow unicellular and multicellular photoautotrophic, mixotrophic and paraphyletic and polyphyletic forms, and photobiomass including seaweeds, and cyanobacteria and photosynthetic bacteria as well as aqueous photosynthetic plants suitable for consuming nutrients from wastewater and use as a biofuel feedstock for separation and reuse, and reduce dissolved solids, heavy metals, nutrients, phosphorus and ammonia compounds in the wastewater liquids to provide recovered treated wastewater for reuse.