Today’s Patent – Systems, Devices and Methods for Anaerobically Treating Wastewater

The said invention (US11964891B2) was invented by Zhen Huang, Xiaojin Li, Shawn H Veltman, patented by USPTO on 28-11-2021. Currently, it stands assigned to Cambrian Innovation Inc.

The present invention generally relates to systems, devices and methods for anaerobically treating wastewater. The anaerobic treatment of biodegradable organic material in wastewater produces biogas, primarily carbon dioxide (CO₂) and methane (CH₄). Accordingly, the resulting biogas-liquids-solids mixture needs to be separated to remove the biogas and separate at least some of the liquid (effluent) from the solids (e.g., biomass, containing anaerobic microbes). Numerous methods of separating the biogas, liquid and solids (so-called “three phase separation”) have been proposed and used but are limited by both their complexity and inefficient use of the space available for biomass settling.

Anaerobic wastewater treatment systems, devices and methods complete three-phase separation of biogas, liquids and solids (e.g., biomass) using overlapped gas hoods or baffles and one or more conically-shaped settlers having a varying cross-sectional area.