July 2026 - MABA Biosolids Spotlight on Innovations
SPOTLIGHT on Innovations
Earthcare Bethel – Merchant Gasifier
Sean Sweeney, Executive Vice President, Earthcare Solutions, LLC, has been focused for over two years on installing a merchant gasification system in Bethel Township, Pennsylvania, to process agricultural and municipal residuals into commercially saleable biochar. Earthcare Bethel is the thermal technology for biosolids that is most advanced in the mid-Atlantic and, for that matter, arguably in the United States. But the path to this distinction has had its challenges. One major component of this facility, the gasifier for thermally processing poultry litter and manure into biochar, was put into operation in spring 2024, and can produce about 3,500 tons of biochar annually.
The second component of Earthcare Bethel is the process for thermally treating biosolids. This second component has now, at long last, entered its operational stage, exceeding 1,000 tons of biosolids processed year-to-date. As Sweeney explains, Earthcare Bethel has completed its “significant pain cycle” -- the long, seemingly necessary step when putting thermal processing equipment together for biosolids processing. The “pain” includes judging how to create a feedstock to the gasifier of sufficiently high BTU content to produce enough syngas to drive the energy-intensive dryer component. The biosolids are blended at various stages of the process with various other organic feedstocks. Another “pain” is how to condition the feedstock to avoid the “sticky” qualities that can gum up a process train. Still another “pain” is how to accommodate the wide variation of residuals available, with varying moisture and organic contents, for delivery to the merchant facility. No less a challenge has been attracting enough plant operators to cover a continuous 24-7 operation, thus avoiding the start-up and shut-down steps during a weekday-only operation. Going through this pain cycle has consumed much of Sweeney’s attention these past two years.
Earthcare Bethel employs two gasifiers, the first for processing animal waste and agricultural and food processing residuals exclusively, so that the biochar can be labeled “organic,” and the second gasifier shown here for thermal conversion of biosolids to biochar.
This two-year period has also allowed a focus on demonstrating gasifiers that can treat per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). The work has validated PFAS with independent testing that the gasification process effectively breaks down "forever chemicals," resulting in biochar with PFOA/PFOS, the two principal PFAS compounds, at levels below detectable limits.
Use of the biochar has been a key feature of Earthcare Bethel. Working with the biochar from the animal residual process train has provided Earthcare ample engagement with the marketplace for biochar and with testing protocols and regulatory involvements that are unique to biochars. Its biochar, branded as Ecochar, is a USDA biobased certified soil amendment; OMRI approval is pending as an all-natural “organic” certified biochar. Earthcare has found the market strong for its ag residuals biochar. Biosolids-based biochar is a different story. Biochar imparts a heavy load of mineral content that dilutes the carbon content, but minerals also amplify the char’s potential for use in environmental remediation and in concrete production. Production of biosolids-based biochar will expand in 2026, which will drive this biochar to this more highly valued market segment
Capital Region Water - Pondus Hydrolysis
As ambitious a transformative solids treatment plan as any in the mid-Atlantic region is underway at Capitol Region Water (CRW) in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. First is its energy recovery plan. Its newly-installed Renewable Natural Gas production system, supplied by Unison and well-funded with state and federal grants, will produce two biogas streams, one from a feedstock of FOG (fats, oils and greases) and a second from a feedstock of wastewater solids. By keeping the anaerobic digesters for each feedstock separate, revenues from gas sales can be maximized. Isolating high-strength organic waste in one digester, CRW can ensure the biogas from its other three digesters remains "untainted," allowing it to qualify for more lucrative D3 RINs (Renewable Identification Numbers) under the EPA’s Renewable Fuel Standard. CRW will treat the up to 400 cfm of biogas flow to exacting standards outlined in the new Biogas Regulatory Reform Rule, ensuring that contract requirements with UGI Energy Services, which took a year to negotiate, are reliably met.
The PONDUS unit is an alkaline thermochemical hydrolysis process manufactured by Centrisys. Capital Region Water’s system is the third installation in the United States.
The second transformational element is the digester system. CRW will be among the first WRRFs to install the proprietary thermos/alkaline hydrolysis system of Centrisys, a system known as Pondus. In addition to being “leading edge” in this process, CRW has been preparing to accept high-strength organic waste at a receiving facility for feeding a designated digester. The entire enterprise of co-digestion of food waste and wastewater solids has very recently been subject to a risk of regulatory change by the state regulator PADEP, a situation affecting a number of WRRFs that bypass headworks with trucked-in organic wastes.
Jess Rosentel, Chief of Operations for Capitol Region Water, has been the CRW champion through the entire energy and solids transformation. All through the process, Rosentel has been committed to deploying new equipment that is operable by the utility’s operations and maintenance staff. He was assured by the Centrisys experience with Pondus at other facilities that its pretreatment and digestion system is operator-friendly. Unison has been on hand to help train CRW operators and maintenance staff to operate a system to scrub and upgrade raw biogas into pipeline-quality methane that meets strict new metering and gas chromatograph (GC) measurement necessary for RNG registration and credit eligibility. 2026 will be the year that the whole system is brought together.
Derry Township Municipal Authority - Ecoremedy
Derry Township Municipal Authority (DTMA), in partnership with its design engineer and construction manager, Brown and Caldwell, has reached major milestones with the installation of the Ecoremedy® Fluid Lift Gasification™ (FLG) system. DTMA’s new solids and energy system is intended to stand as a leading example of the circular biosolids economy. This project is supported through PENNVEST financing, including a $10 million loan and $4 million grant/principal forgiveness.
Installation is complete, including major system components such as the drum dryer, gasifier, thermal oxidizer, and emissions controls. The project also includes a new biosolids conveyance system with a receiving bin, screw conveyors, and road-crossing supports linking the cake receiving and storage area to the gasification and drum dryer facility. After nearly two years of construction, the system has recently entered the startup and commissioning phase this June.
At the DTMA, the Ecoremedy LLC Horizontal Fluid Lift™ Gasifier is in the foreground of this image, with the Single Pass Rotary Drum Dryer in the background, made ready for wet commissioning in June 2026.
Ecoremedy staff will provide on-site operational support during the six-month commissioning period to demonstrate system performance, optimize operations, and prepare for turnover to DTMA staff. One significant performance metric is the self-sustainable operation of the drum dryer using gasified biosolids as the sole fuel for 120 continuous hours. DTMA is expected to become the reference facility on the East Coast for this technology, building on the installation in Edmonds, Washington, and the earlier demonstration-scale facility in Morrisville, Pennsylvania.
The new biosolids facility will provide DTMA several strategic advantages. This includes the operational flexibility to produce Class A biosolids, biochar, or low carbon “ash,” depending upon the energy content of the gasifier feed or process setpoint. The system also has capacity to receive and process Class B biosolids cake from nearby WRRFs. Similar to DTMA’s long-standing energy recovery initiatives with the acceptance program for co-digestion of high-strength organic wastes, the new biosolids facility will recover thermal energy to reduce the facility's dependence on natural gas usage. Together, these objectives are intended to maximize revenue generation while lowering costs.
Another operational benefit will be demonstrating that the thermal processing system serves as an effective barrier to environmental releases of poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). A principal goal is to reduce PFAS to non-detect levels in the recyclable ash produced by the gasifier.
DTMA hosted its first open house on Wednesday, June 17th, an event timed to coincide with the Pennsylvania Water Environment Association’s PennTec 2026 Annual Conference, which was held just 2.5 miles from the Hershey Lodge conference center.
Quakertown Borough Wastewater Facility – Advanced Digestion
Butch Erwin says “it is all coming together.” Quakertown Borough’s $23 million “resource recovery” installation is now in startup mode, and Erwin believes he has a good chance of having it fully operational before the end of the summer. The core concept of the installation of anaerobic digesters and a cogeneration system is to go beyond energy self-sufficiency to that of an electricity provider for the borough-owned energy utility. When the plant is at full capacity for acceptance of food waste, biogas production is expected to support two internal combustion engines, each an 800 kW 2G-brand generator. .
Quakertown Borough has worked closely with Anaergia on these high-solids digesters, equipped for accepting high-strength organic wastes to maximize production of electricity that will be fed to the borough-owned electric utility.
The firm Anaergia, which specializes in industrial cogeneration systems, has played a leading role in the Quakertown project. Anaergia has supplied 90 percent of the equipment to Quakertown, including digesters that handle 10 percent solids content feedstock and the specialized screens, thickeners, mixers, tanks and heat exchangers needed to support such high solids content feed. Anaergia also supplies the gas handling equipment that ensures a steady, consistent renewable natural gas flow to the engines. By far the largest energy component to the plan, providing about 3/4ths of the BTUs, will come from acceptance of high-strength organic waste (HSOW). Quakertown has taken lessons from New Jersey’s Rahway Valley Sewerage Authority for the kind of HSOW it seeks to feed as a uniform slurry to municipal digesters.
While Erwin has had many technical challenges to track with Anaergia and his other partners, Atlas Technical Consultants and Worth & Company, it is the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP) that is causing current agita. PADEP’s reworking this year of its biosolids general and individual permit system threatens to undermine several essential assumptions of the viability of land application of the biosolids product that Quakertown will be producing. Quakertown has been a reliable supplier of agricultural nutrients to farmers in its catchment area, and plans to remain so with its new biosolids product.
