Our company was founded in Chapel Hill, NC in no small part due to the incredible science and technology resources available in the Research Triangle area. One blog that focuses on the many companies and technology issues of this area is Science in the Triangle. Author Lisa M. Dellwo interviewed Entex CEO, Wayne Flournoy, about the state of wastewater treatment technology in the U.S. today. He explained to her some of the basics in layman’s terms.

“If you can enable your system to sustain a larger mass of “biology,” your system will be more efficient. That’s what Entex does. It provides substrates that allow more of the beneficial microorganisms to grow and that allow them to stay in the treatment tanks longer. One, BioWeb, is a fabric that looks much like a soccer net, which Entex licenses from its manufacturer. It’s all about “creating an environment that the right kind of biology likes,” said Flournoy. He added, “The real magic is . . . in manipulating the microbial environment to maximize the beneficial biology while minimizing the nuisance organisms.”

The article also discusses new challenges in wastewater treatment such as removing pharmaceutical compounds and achieving extremely low levels of nutrients like nitrogen.