Midwest Floating Island | FTW Technology

Modeled after native wetlands, BioHaven® Floating Islands are a concentrated form of one of nature’s water purification systems. Made from a proprietary matrix of 100% recycled plastic, injected with inert polyurethane foam for buoyancy, they are designed to support vegetation above the waterline and beneficial microbial habitat below.

Both types of BioHaven® – Floating Treatment Wetlands and Living Walkways, larger custom-designed islands designed to support walkways, docks, picnic tables and other structures – provide a number of benefits. Among other things they:

• are beautiful – each one a unique natural garden
• add critical riparian habitat for fish and birds
• are virtually self-sustaining and maintenance free
• remove and reduce nitrogen, phosphorus, organic waste plus heavy metals and pharmaceuticals.
• reduce erosion damage to surrounding natural shoreline.

BioHaven® Islands mimic nature with a floating wetland that hydroponically draws nutrient out of the water through the proliferation of microbial bio-film and plants.

Research: Key findings by Floating Island International

Summary of key findings for waste water treatment, MBRCT study:

    * Remove TSS to below detection limits (<10 mg/L)
    * Reduce DOC at a rate of 9000 mg/(ft2*day)
    * Reduce Phosphorus at a rate of 428 mg/(ft2*day)
    * Nitrify Ammonia at a rate of 750 mg/(ft2*day)
    * Simultaneously denitrify nitrate to nitrogen gas

See the article about this research paper:

   Floating Island as an alternative to constructed wetlands

Summary of key findings for storm water treatment, NIWA study:

    * Matrix with plants more effective than matrix alone for copper, suspended sediment and nutrient removal.

Approximate results for planted islands treating synthetic urban stormwater:

    * 50-65% removal of total copper after 7 days, 70-85% in 14 days
    * 5-30% removal of zinc in 7 days, 30-45% in 14 days
    * 50-67% reduction in turbidity in 7 days and down to < 1 NTU after 14 days
    * Ammonium-nitrogen (NH4-N) reduced by 50-90 % in 3 days and 65-95% after 7 days
    * Dissolved Reactive Phosphorus (DRP) reduced up to 20-50% after 7 days, 50-85% after 14 days.

Note: In the conclusions section of the Tanner/Headley report, they list the range (in metric units) of removal as:

Copper: 3.8 – 6.4 mg/square meter /day
Zinc: 25 – 88 mg/square meter /day.

Converting to our standard Floating Island U.S. units yields:

    Copper: 0.4 – 0 .6 mg/sf/day
    Zinc: 2.3 – 8.2 mg/sf/day

See a summary article and a detailed report about this research:

NIWA Storm Water Article

TR2008 NIWA Removal of Copper, Zinc and Fines

Here is a general review of floating treatment wetland from an independent study in New Zealand:

   TP324 Floating Wetland Review-Final