Solving the newest old problems in RAS technology

by LandIng Aquaculture BV, The Netherlands

The RAS sector is currently experiencing an unprecedented boom. We are observing the numbers of large RAS installations growing each year, some at scales thought not possible a decade ago. With increased scale, the size of the risks and technical challenges has also grown.

The Jevon’s paradox can be applied to RAS. The paradox postulates that increasing the efficiency of using a resource leads to an increase in the demand for such resource. In the end, the net use of the resource grows. With RAS, significant savings in water use have opened the map for suitable places for fish farming.
 

Peri-urban areas, rough coastlines and regions with limited water sources are increasingly attractive to build fish farms. Other areas with plenty of water available? Those are good for building even larger fish farms! In other words, being able to reuse more water is allowing us to build even larger farms that, due to their sheer size, will still use vast amounts of water.

Having a good source of water with excellent quality is as important as ever. In the past, water availability used to constrain our capacity to supply farmed fish with enough oxygen and to keep them safe from accumulation of wastes. Rob van de Ven explains, “Nowadays, with RAS, water availability hinders our capacity to keep the water free from less dangerous, but still aggravating agents. Nitrate, fine solids (which are mostly bacterial flocs) and sludge (which can lead to H2S formation) are next on our laundry list of RAS problems to solve.”

“The cost, complexity and novelty of technologies to control nitrate, fine solids and microbes are often barriers to their commercial adoption”, Carlos Espinal adds. For instance, the use of ozonation is almost non-existent in Norway, but more prevalent in North America and Germany, where ozonation research has been historically undertaken.

The use of denitrification reactors is also rare in Norway as, historically, enough water has been available to control nitrate by dilution and water temperature control was not a requirement. However, denitrification technology is more prevalent in countries with water scarcity, stringent water discharge regulations or system heating needs. Israel, Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands are good examples.

To push Jevon’s paradox away, at least for a while, Landing Aquaculture is developing some products which, hopefully, will increase the adoption fine solids filtration and denitrification technologies of in RAS.

Read more, HERE.

The Aquaculturists

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