Getting to Know AdEdge

The AdEdge Clean Water Blog is full of information about what we do at AdEdge—case studies about our successful treatment systems, videos of product demonstrations and even a Q&A with our president. With so much information available, it seems like we do it all. We thought we’d provide a comprehensive list of everything we offer so you can determine if one of our services is right for your needs.

AdEdge specializes in the development and supply of innovative technologies, specialty medias, membranes and integrated systems that remove contaminants from process or aqueous streams. AdEdge has extensive experience in the removal of arsenic, iron, manganese, hydrogen sulfide, fluoride and uranium from water and has sold hundreds of water systems to clients throughout North America and locations around the world.

Our offerings include:

Brands

● AdEdge Package Units (APU)

● Modular treatment systems

● WaterPOD containerized treatment systems

● ADIN chemical feed systems

● H2Zero backwash recycle systems

● INGenius panel controls

● INVue remote monitoring

● AdVantEdge residential products

Media

● Bayoxide E33 adsorption media for arsenic removal

● AD26 oxidation/filtration media

● Arsenic, iron and manganese, hydrogen sulfide, nitrate, radium, uranium and fluoride removal

● Ion exchange media

● Softening

● AD74 adsorption media

● Membrane systems, including ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis

Services

● Design and engineering consulting

● System refurbishments and upgrades

● Media replacement services

● Technical support

● Spare parts

● Membrane cleaning chemicals

● Service contracts

Contact AdEdge if any of our product or service offerings can help solve your water problems and let us design a custom system to meet your needs.

Canadian Invasion

From our Georgia home base we have easy access to all of the United States, which is where most of our projects have been completed. But we are also no strangers to our neighbors to the north. Here are a few highlights from some of AdEdge’s projects in Canada: 

In Alberta’s Hamlet of Little Smoky community, an AdEdge multi-stage treatment solution tackles high concentrations of arsenic, iron and manganese, aluminum, total dissolved solids, total suspended solids, total organic carbon and turbidity at a truck fill station designed as a resource for residents during times of water scarcity. AdEdge designed a system with ultraviolet disinfection, reverse osmosis, an ion exchange system, an oxidation/filtration system, and pre- and post-chlorination—all housed inside a container. The system, which started in December 2013, runs for approximately 16 hours a day and has a projected consumption of 13,200 gallons per day. Treated water is stored below the system, in a 100-cubic-meter storage tank.

A river mine site in Yukon enlisted AdEdge to treat the arsenic in its tailing pond’s discharge water, as the site’s existing treatment plant was inoperable. The arsenic levels of 54 ppb exceeded the Canadian Metal Mining Effluent Regulations standard of 50 ppb. An AdEdge WaterPOD containerized building houses a skid-mounted coagulation/filtration packaged unit, which has reduced the arsenic levels to well below the standard since it was started up in June 2012.

The approximately 150 students and staff at Rawdon Elementary School in Nova Scotia needed a treatment solution for the elevated arsenic levels in the school’s water. Atlantic Purification Systems contacted AdEdge to design, manufacture and start up a system to bring the arsenic levels to a safe level that complied with the Canadian Maximum Acceptable Concentration (MAC) of 10 ppb. Integrated with the school’s existing water softener system, the 10-gallon-per-minute system is composed of two composite vessels with top mounted automatic flow controls. Using AdEdge’s E33 granular ferric oxide media, the system has successfully and consistently reduced the school’s arsenic levels to below the MAC since September 2007.

From Canada to Argentina to Indonesia, our services are spread across the globe. Give us a call and let us know where our treatment solutions for clean, safe water are needed next.

Small Town, Big Contamination

The village of Dewitt is located in the heart of Illinois, more than 150 miles from Chicago. Although the town has a population of only 200 residents, a number of contaminants had taken up residence in its water supply.

In 2011, Urbana, Ill.-based consulting firm Berns, Clancy and Associates contacted AdEdge to help clean up the community’s water supply. The filter system was not meeting regulatory requirements,with its elevated levels of arsenic, iron and manganese, and hydrogen sulfide. In addition to these contaminants, the water also had high levels of phosphate, ammonia and total organic carbon.

Using a 50-gallon-per-minute treatment system composed of four 24-inch carbon steel vessels arranged in a parallel configuration, AdEdge tackled the contamination. The vessels were loaded with AdEdge’s AD26 oxidation/filtration media for the removal of arsenic, iron and manganese, and hydrogen sulfide. AD26 media is a NSF 61-certified, manganese dioxide-based filter media. The high filtration rate of the AD26 media allows for the removal of the contaminants while maintaining the existing building’s small footprint.

The AD26 media in the presence of a strong oxidant, which is injected into the raw water, acts as a catalyst for the accelerated removal of the contaminants. The programmable logic controller (PLC) initiates an automatic backwash of the treatment vessels to remove any precipitated solids that may accumulate in the media bed and to extend the life of the AD26 media.

Backwashing occurs one vessel at a time to ensure water is continuously being treated throughout the day. The system fully integrates with the existing post-chlorination system that addresses the high ammonia levels in the water before going to distribution.

The system was successfully commissioned in July 2013. Today, it treats more than 30,000 gallons of water each day, reducing each contaminant to non-detectable levels.

AdEdge’s packaged treatment systems are the ideal contamination solution for small community drinking water systems. Contact AdEdge and let us create a cleaner, safer water supply for your customers. 

No More Nitrates

Some contaminants are more difficult to detect than others. While some give off an offensive odor or taste, others are completely undetectable by the senses. Nitrate is one such contaminant.

Nitrates can come from a number of sources, making their presence in water almost unavoidable.

“Plants need nutrients to survive and farmers add nitrate fertilizer in soil to increase crop production,” said Khushbu Karan, applications engineer for AdEdge.  “Therefore, one of the common sources of nitrates is from crop plants.”

Another source of nitrates are plants that consume nitrogen in the air and pass it to the ground through their roots.  

Sewage and human and animal waste can also be a source of nitrates, as the nitrogen often present in septic system effluent is converted to ammonia in soil. The bacteria in the soil then convert the ammonia to nitrates.

“As we all know, excess of anything is not good,” said Karan. “When excess nitrates that remain unused by plants percolate through the soil into groundwater, nitrate contamination occurs.”

Much like the odorless, tasteless and colorless contaminants of uranium and arsenic, nitrate also lacks any telltale signs. It can only be detected through laboratory testing.

Nitrates can lead to serious health risks, particularly for livestock and infants younger than 6 months old.

“Babies are more susceptible to nitrate poisoning since they have nitrate bacteria present in (their) stomach(s) that convert nitrates to nitrites that are non-carriers of oxygen,” Karan said. “It can therefore cause suffocation and breathing problems in them, leading to serious health problems.”

Luckily, AdEdge has several nitrate removal options, which suit almost any application.

The ADNO3 IX anion exchange selective resin is supplied in moist, tough, uniform spherical beads, which remove nitrates without the expense of nitrate dumping. The media is NSF/ANSI-61 certified and is ideal for use in drinking water, non-potable water and environmental remediation applications.

“AdEdge also offers reverse osmosis membrane solutions using advanced membrane technology coupled with packaged treatment modules for a complete integrated solution,” Khushbu said. “It can serve a variety of applications including drinking water, mining, boiler feed and remediation.” A reverse osmosis system reduces total dissolved solids, which include nitrates, total suspended solids, pathogens and other contaminants. The package consists of both chemical and mechanical pretreatment for long-term membrane operation and performance.

It is important to regularly test your water supply to ensure its safety and compliance with federal standards. In the United States, that standard is 10 mg/L for nitrate as nitrogen.

If your water supply contains elevated levels of this invisible pest, contact AdEdge for a customized treatment solution to bring your water back to a clean, safe and healthy state.

Getting to Know Rich Cavagnaro

Behind the scenes of every great company is a team of hard-working individuals who are dedicated to their jobs. AdEdge is no exception. With a staff committed to providing clean, safe water to their customers, AdEdge would like to give you a glimpse into our employees. Find out what they do, what they love about AdEdge and how they spend their time off the clock.

To kick off the Q&As, we thought we’d start with our award-winning fearless leader. Rich Cavagnaro, president of AdEdge, was recently named the Metro Atlanta Chamber Business Person of the Year in the Experienced Entrepreneur category. Each year, the Metro Atlanta Chamber and the Atlanta Business Chronicle honor outstanding business professionals from around metro Atlanta. With more than 25 years of international business experience, Rich works every day to help the company and its employees meet their goals.

  

Name:

Rich Cavagnaro

What is your job title?

President.

How long have you been with AdEdge?

Since the beginning. In the summer of 2002, Greg Gilles and I, along with two other individuals, joined together to start the company.

Describe your typical workday.

First of all, there is no typical day! In the first part of the day I like to think about my plan for the day, have brief discussions of five minutes or less with several staff members to understand some of their pressing issues and then create a “get-done” list. After that I like to start tackling the list, recognizing which items are priorities. On most days I enjoy walking around and asking staff at all levels what they are working on and what challenges they face.

A big portion of my time is spent understanding how well we are executing toward our company goals. Many members of our staff have their nose to the grindstone, so I try to keep my head up and see where we are heading in the next 30 days, three months and the next 12 months. I have tremendous faith in my management team and try not be redundant or a roadblock to their execution, but I do spend a portion of my day reviewing the dashboard of key financial metrics.

What is your favorite part about working for AdEdge?

Seeing the growth of the company is very gratifying of course, but seeing the growth of our people is truly a rewarding experience. But most of all I try to remind our team the importance of our company’s core value for a passion for clean water. When we get testimonials from our customers that we have done a great job and really have improved their situation, that is my favorite part about working at AdEdge.

What is the most rewarding project you’ve worked on?

Our project in San Antonio de los Cobres, Argentina for a community of 6,000 people that had arsenic levels approaching 300 parts per billion (ppb). That we were able to reduce that level to acceptable levels of less than 10 ppb is a signature achievement for AdEdge. This project was done in tandem with a Christian charity, and we subsequently created our own charity called Helping Hands for Water to further assist the project.

A documentary was filmed during the course of the project, which lasted several years. The documentary, titled “Troubled Waters,” premiered this past year and at the conclusion of the film the joy of a passion for clean water is ever present, as the last comment states: “The life expectancy of the people in San Antonio de los Cobres is expected to double.”

Favorite weekend activity:

Spending time with friends and/or family and trying to stir a little controversy.

Something your coworkers would be surprised to learn about you:

As a freshman in high school, I pole-vaulted 9-feet 6-inches—a record that stood for many years!

Creating a Personalized Membrane System

Reverse osmosis system in New Mexico

Membrane technology is just one of many options AdEdge offers to decontaminate water supplies. Whether you require high quality drinking water for a municipal water utility or consistently pure water for bottling and drinking, AdEdge can design and build a customized membrane solution to meet your site’s treatment needs.

AdEdge offers ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis (RO) membrane systems for a variety of industrial, municipal and mining applications. For reducing total dissolved solids (TDS), RO is the perfect choice.

When designing a RO system, we begin with the basics. AdEdge’s team of experts first analyzes the water’s quality and temperature to determine the system’s operating pressure and other elements of the design.

“The RO projection will dictate the operating pressure required by the high pressure RO pump, how many membranes are required, chemical feed requirements and the system array, which is the membrane layout,” said Doug Craver, AdEdge’s Western Region Sales Manager.

Sometimes the water is contaminated with minerals that can harm the surface of the membrane. RO pretreatment is often necessary to treat these contaminants before they have a chance to cause any damage.

Chlorine is one such mineral that can be trouble for an RO system.

“Chlorine is an oxidizer and present in most potable water supplies and, if not removed, this will actually oxidize the membrane surface creating ‘micro-holes’ in the membrane surface,” Craver said. “Where other contaminants plug the membranes, this will actually do the opposite and will ultimately allow more TDS and contaminants to pass through the membranes.”

For effective pretreatment, our RO systems can be integrated with our other treatment technologies to ensure successful removal of harmful contaminants in one convenient system. AdEdge also offers antiscalants to curb buildup on the membrane and soften the water.

Much like our other treatment systems, RO systems are skid-mounted and pre-plumbed, pre-wired and tested before they are shipped to your site. Using a forklift or other heavy lifting equipment, the contractor can simply consult the supplied AutoCAD drawings of the system, making installation a breeze.

Membrane technology is an ideal solution for treating tap, well or surface water applications to produce highly purified water across all industries. Contact AdEdge and let one of our experienced engineers design a custom solution that fits your needs.

Understanding Membrane Treatment

Ultrafiltration system

When it comes to water treatment, there is never a shortage of options available for consumers. Membrane filtration is one item on AdEdge’s long list of treatment solutions designed to produce clean, safe water. But what exactly is membrane treatment and how can it benefit your water supply?

Simply put, in a membrane system, water is forced through a material that is designed to only allow pure water to pass through, leaving the contaminants behind.

No matter the industry, if highly purified water is needed, membrane treatment is an ideal solution. From car washes seeking a spot-free rinse, to the pristine irrigation systems on the green lawns of golf courses, a membrane system can deliver water that is free of fluoride, nitrates, arsenic and total dissolved solids (TDS).

Looking for water that is good enough to drink? Membrane treatment is also great for potable water applications such as restaurants, hotels, schools and resorts.

Reverse osmosis (RO) and ultrafiltration (UF) are the two most common methods of membrane treatment.

“Many products fabricated require high purity water for various aspects of the process, so RO is the most cost effective technology available for reduction of TDS from well and or potable water supplies,” said Doug Craver, Western Region Sales Manager for AdEdge.

An RO system can also help water utilities stay in line with federal regulations when certain contaminants are present at levels higher than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s maximum contaminant levels. And multiple contaminants are no problem, according to Craver, as RO technology can be combined with other treatment methods into one system for decontamination.

“Depending on the contaminants present, RO can be used by itself to reduce several contaminants at one time or can be used in conjunction with filtration systems to meet the required parameters,” Craver explained.

Ultrafiltration membrane systems, on the other hand, reduce organics and turbidity to bring surface water supplies up to drinking water quality. They are also used to reclaim wastewater for reuse or groundwater recharge. Large particles won’t pass through UF membranes, but ions and small organics will flow through with ease.

AdEdge designs custom membrane treatment solutions that are effective under a variety of conditions and can be combined with other AdEdge treatment technologies for complete contaminant removal. Let us design a membrane system that is right for your water supply.