Phosphorus Removal and Recovery from Municipal Wastewaters

Parsons, Simon A.; Smith, Jennifer A.

doi:10.2113/gselements.4.2.109

Cited by 163 publications

(91 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…The P in the urine is mainly present as inorganic phosphate, and struvite obtained from urine has the advantages of higher P 2 O 5 content (28.9%) compared to common P fertilizer (e.g., P 2 O 5 of calcium superphosphate, 12.0−16.0%), slow release rate, and much lower impurity. 6,7 Agronomic evaluation of struvite is important in determining the feasibility of P recovery from waste. It is known that water-soluble P fertilizer is generally considered to be fully plant available, and the P uptake from struvite has been studied in the greenhouse with a variety of test plants on soils compared with commercial P fertilizer.…”

Section: ■ Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influence of Soil and Irrigation Water pH on the Availability of Phosphorus in Struvite Derived from Urine through a Greenhouse Pot Experiment

Liu

Tao²,

Wen

et al. 2016

J. Agric. Food Chem.

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One greenhouse pot experiment was used to investigate the availability of phosphorus in struvite derived from urine affected by soil pH (cinnamon soil, pH 7.3; paddy soil, pH 5.3) and irrigation water (pH 6.0 and 7.5) with bird rapeseed (Brassica campestris L.). The biomass of applied struvite in paddy soil was significantly greater than that of applied calcium superphosphate. However, statistically significant differences were not observed in cinnamon soil. Soil-applied struvite had a higher Olsen P compared to soil-applied calcium superphosphate irrespective of soil type. The biomass of applied struvite and irrigation with pH 6.0 water was greater compared to that with irrigation with pH 7.3 water irrespective of soil type, accompanied with significantly higher leaf chlorophyll concentration. Therefore, struvite has the potential to be an effective P fertilizer, and acidic irrigation water has greater influence on the availability of phosphorus in struvite than does acidic soil. KEYWORDS: struvite, phosphorus, plant availability, soil, irrigation water ■ INTRODUCTIONPhosphorus (P), as an indispensable resource, is an essential nutrient for crop growth. The depletion timeline of P rock reserves ranges from 30 to 300 years.1 Although this estimation provides substantial uncertainty and more accurate data are lacking, there is no doubt regarding the irreversible depletion of high-concentration rock P reserves and the decline of the quality of the reserves (such as % P and presence of impurities) over time, 1 resulting in higher economic and energy cost for P exploitation. If P can be recovered in an economical way, it can re-enter the agricultural supply chain, displacing the consumption of traditional P fertilizer. It helps to create an ecofriendly environment by reducing the need for P rock 2 and to alleviate the P load emissions to water bodies. Human urine accounts for approximately 50% of the total P load in municipal wastewater, with <1% of the total wastewater volume.3 Direct application of urine in agriculture is feasible in practice. 4 However, huge quantities of separated urine are often difficult to transport and to store due to its unpleasant odor. Furthermore, health risk due to micropollutants and nitrogen (N) loss due to ammonia volatilization will be unavoidable during the application of urine to soil. Therefore, P recovery from urine in the form of struvite crystals will be a promising option with easy transportation, hygiene safety, and less nutrient loss.Struvite crystal is formed with an equal molar concentrations of magnesium (Mg), ammonium, and phosphate combined with six water molecules (MgNH 4 PO 4 ·6H 2 O), which contains 5.7% N, 12.6% P, and 9.9% Mg by weight. The solubility of struvite is highly dependent on pH, 5 and it is sparingly soluble in neutral and alkaline solutions, but readily soluble in acid solution. The P in the urine is mainly present as inorganic phosphate, and struvite obtained from urine has the advantages of higher P 2 O 5 content (28.9%) compared to common ...

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Section: ■ Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influence of Soil and Irrigation Water pH on the Availability of Phosphorus in Struvite Derived from Urine through a Greenhouse Pot Experiment

Liu

Tao²,

Wen

et al. 2016

J. Agric. Food Chem.

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“…Further, the final extraction residue, raffinate, is an aqueous solution containing a large amount of dissolved Mg 2+ ions; thus, the residue can be separately used in water purification for removing the phosphorus components present in sewage. The phosphorus is removed in the form of struvite (i.e., ammonium magnesium phosphate hydrate, NH 4 MgPO 4 ·6H 2 O) precipitate [7,26,27], which is a slow-release complex fertilizer. To date, many inexpensive Mg sources have been sought as the key material to improve the economic feasibility of struvite precipitation [28][29][30][31][32].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Production of High-purity Magnetite Nanoparticles from a Low-grade Iron Ore via Solvent Extraction

Suh¹,

May²,

Kil³

et al. 2015

Korean Chemical Engineering Research

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− We produced magnetite nanoparticles (MNPs) and a Mg-rich solution as a nano-adsorbent and a coagulant for water treatment, respectively, using a low-grade iron ore. The ore was leached with aqueous hydrochloric acid and its impurities were removed by solvent extraction of the leachate using tri-n-butyl phosphate as an extractant. The content of Si and Mg, which inhibit the formation of MNPs, was reduced from 10.3 wt% and 15.5 wt% to 28.1 mg/L and < 1.4 mg/L, respectively. Consequently, the Fe content increased from 68.6 wt% to 99.8 wt%. The high-purity Fe 3+ solution recovered was used to prepare 5-15-nm MNPs by coprecipitation. The wastewater produced contained a large amount of Mg 2+ and can be used to precipitate struvite in sewage treatment. This process helps reduce the cost of both sewage and iron-orewastewater treatments, as well as in the economic production of the nano-adsorbent.

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“…However, mortality of filamentous bacteria and protozoa may increase in the presence of salt, decreasing the natural settling capability of particles in marine and brackish water systems (Mesquita et al 2011). There is little evidence that chemical flocculants and coagulants (lime, iron sulphate, iron chloride, aluminium sulphate and aluminium chloride) are efficient in saline water and these have proven prohibitively expensive as treatment in freshwater systems (Cripps & Bergheim 2000, Parsons & Smith 2008. Instead, rotating micro-screens, drum screens, drum filters or swirl concentrators with screen sizes ranging from 60 to 200 µm have been successfully implemented in land-based intensive fish farms (Cripps & Bergheim 2000, Sindilariu et al 2009), and 60 µm mesh has the potential to capture > 80% of solids in freshwater fish farms (Kelly et al 1997).…”

Section: Concentrating Settling and Removing Particulatesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Wastewater treatment for land-based aquaculture: improvements and value-adding alternatives in model systems from Australia

Castine¹,

McKinnon²,

Paul³

et al. 2013

Aquacult. Environ. Interact.

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Land-based aquaculture is an integral part of global aquaculture production for fishes (28.8 million t), molluscs (13.1 million t) and crustaceans (5.0 million t; FAO 2010, Hall et al. 2011. The majority of landbased systems which support the intensive culture of fresh, brackish and marine water organisms do so through the addition of high-protein feeds to sustain the rapid growth of intensively farmed animals ABSTRACT: Settlement ponds are used to remove particulate and dissolved nutrients in Australian land-based aquaculture wastewater. At best, marine and brackish water settlement ponds reduce total suspended solids by 60%, but their efficiency is inconsistent. Functional improvements to nutrient removal systems are essential to provide uniform and predictable treatment of flow-through aquaculture wastewater. Furthermore, environmental regulation of discharge from intensive systems in Australia is increasing, providing the impetus to upgrade rudimentary singlestep settlement pond systems. We characterise technologies used for land-based aquaculture wastewater treatment prior to discharge from shrimp systems in Australia. We identify opportunities to integrate technologies developed for the treatment of municipal wastewaters and intensive recirculating aquaculture systems, and use these to develop a model system for intensive shrimp farm wastewater. The first stage is the reduction of solids through the use of deep anaerobic ponds, which are tailored to dilute saline wastewater. Non-settled colloidal and supracolloidal solids can subsequently be removed through trapping in a sand bed filter and biological transformation to dissolved inorganic nitrogen or N 2 . The resulting dissolved nutrients can be treated in a 3-stage algal treatment system by assimilation into harvestable biomass, and finally constructed wetlands polish wastewater through further trapping of particulates, and transformation of dissolved nitrogen. Given that upgrading wastewater treatment facilities is costly, we highlight options that have the potential to offset nutrient treatment costs, such as the use of algal biomass for food or energy products, and the recycling of nitrogen and phosphorus via pyrolysis creating products such as biochar and biofuel.

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Phosphorus Removal and Recovery from Municipal Wastewaters

Cited by 163 publications

References 13 publications

Influence of Soil and Irrigation Water pH on the Availability of Phosphorus in Struvite Derived from Urine through a Greenhouse Pot Experiment

Influence of Soil and Irrigation Water pH on the Availability of Phosphorus in Struvite Derived from Urine through a Greenhouse Pot Experiment

Production of High-purity Magnetite Nanoparticles from a Low-grade Iron Ore via Solvent Extraction

Wastewater treatment for land-based aquaculture: improvements and value-adding alternatives in model systems from Australia

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