BIOTEC was born in 1984 in Belgium. The main objective was to create conceptual tools, technologies and methods adapted to Tropical regions for wastewater treatment (farming, agro-industrial and urban sectors) and organic solid waste management. The other goal was to use the sub-products generated by decontamination processes as energetic sources and agro-industrial inputs. These objectives were achieved throughout three main technologies:

• Anaerobic water treatment (leading to biogas generation)
• Aerobic composting
• Ferti-irrigation
  

Set of lagoons (Covered anaerobic lagoons, facultative lagoons ) EL ESPINO, Perú, 2007

In BIOTEC’s philosophy, treated wastewater is a valuable agricultural input. It represents water, organic matter and finally nutrients for soils’ fertility enhancement and agricultural production. In every case, treated water should be used for these purposes instead of being discharged into rivers or into other receptors.
In order to make water treatment and environmental protection feasible and sound, technologies have to be adapted to the economic regional context.
Investment and operation costs have to reflect local cost of living. Consequently it is no sensible to offer and implement systems designed in the Northern Hemisphere (Europe and USA) for tropical developing countries. Adapted alternatives to local contexts have to be sought out.
Tropical regions possess advantages compared to European countries regarding decontamination costs and the use of treated wastewater in agricultural systems. These strengths are:

• High and stable temperatures throughout the year enabling a continuous an efficient anaerobic digestion (with important biogas generation yields)
• 12 months available for crops’ vegetative growth. Hence the demand for organic matter and nutrients is constant all year long. This permits avoiding fertilizers storage costs
• Soils demand important amounts of organic matter as it is quickly mineralized and assimilated by crops. This gives an interesting economic value to organic matter
• Water for irrigation purposes is an important asset during dry seasons. Thus, irrigation systems are well established in tropical regions and are adapted for using treated water for ferti-irrigation
  

BIOTEC settled in Colombia in 1986 where it developed treatment and re-use systems for tropical regions.
During the first years in Latin America (1986-1989) BIOTEC used biodigesters as farming intensification vectors. These reactors transformed liquid manure into organic fertilizer. This fertilizer was spread weekly (or every 15 days) on crops. The generated biogas was a system sub-product. This intensification was also applied to the flower agro-business where organic flower wastes were digested via fungi degradation (Fusarium Oxysporium).

Subsequently BIOTEC started building anaerobic systems for agro-industries and cities (UASB technology / anaerobic filter / contact biodigester / covered anaerobic lagoons).
Nowadays, our main engineering centre is located in Cali, Colombia.

Since 2005, as crude oil prices rose and the Kyoto Protocol was implemented, activities have shifted towards biogas capture and use. Agro-industrial effluent treatment is hence the core business of BIOTEC. Our main clients are:
- Palm Oil Mills
- Alcohol distilleries (bio-ethanol production)
- Pig and cattle farms for treating liquid manure