Phosphorus Removal from Waste Waters Using Basic Oxygen Steel Slag

Abstract

Few studies have characterized reactive media for phosphorus (P) removal in passive treatment systems in terms of both batch and continuous flow experiments. This study uses basic oxygen steel slag (BOS) from a U.K. feedstock. Batch experiments demonstrated the effective removal of phosphorus with varying initial pH, initial P concentration, clast size, and ionic strength to represent environmental conditions. Continuous flow column experiments, operated for 406 days, with an influent P concentration of 1-50 mg/L (typical of domestic and dairy parlour waste) achieved removal of up to 62%; a second set of column experiments running for 306 days with an influent P concentration of 100-300 mg/L achieved a maximum effective removal of 8.39 mg/g. This figure is higher than that for other slags reviewed in this study (e.g., EAF Slag 3.93 mg/g and NZ melter slag 1.23 mg/g). XRD, E-SEM, and EDX data provide evidence for a sequential series of increasingly less soluble P mineral phases forming on the BOS surface (octa-calcium phosphate, brushite, and hydroxylapatite),which suggests that BOS may be a suitable substrate in passive treatment systems, providing a long-term P removal mechanism.

Enhanced phosphorus removal from wastewater by growing deep-sea bacterium combined with basic oxygen furnace slag

“…2b. This agrees to the work of Bowden et al (Bowden et al, 2009), that lower pH was beneficial to the dissolution of calcium and phosphorus adsorption onto BOFS. The waxing and waning contributions of A.…”

A Laboratory Study of the Treatability of Synthetic Stormwater Under Varying Conditions Using Electric Arc Furnace Steel Slag

“…Thus, apart from being effective, a successful stormwater treatment initiative must be affordable and make use of inexpensive materials. Low-cost industrial by-products such as fly ash [17,18], dried alum sludge [19], cement kiln dust [20] and different varieties of slag [21][22][23] that have been used for P removal from wastewaters would also be attractive for stormwater treatment. Of these materials, electric arc furnace steel slag (EAF slag) has consistently proven to be a superior material for P sequestration [24][25][26][27].…”

Phosphorus removal performance and speciation in virgin and modified argon oxygen decarburisation slag designed for wastewater treatment

“…Drizo et al (2006) conducted column experiments to investigate the P removal performance of EAF slag and obtained consistently high PRE for 114 days. Bowden et al (2009) investigated BOF slag as a reactive medium for P removal in both batch and continuous flow experiments for 406 days and observed high maximum P removal. Barca et al (2012) evaluated EAF and BOF slags from four countries in Europe in terms of their P removal capacity using both synthetic P solution and real wastewater and found that BOF slag has a much higher maximum P removal capacity (PRC) than EAF slag.…”