Stagewise processing of yellow water using clinoptilolite for nitrogen and phosphorus recovery and higher residual quality

Abstract

Source-separated human urine may be used as a source of fertilizers indirectly through processing with clinoptilolite. The suggested form of fertilizer is clinoptilolite loaded with plant nutrients from urine, where nitrogen and phosphorus will be released upon contact with water. Triggered by the need for handling high concentrations remaining in the liquid phase to be disposed of, this paper aims to present the option of improving the residual nutrient quality through stagewise processing with clinoptilolite, while investigating any improvement in nutrient removal. Two sets of experiments, stagewise operation under (i) constant loadings and (ii) variable loadings in each stage, are discussed. Stagewise operation has been observed to be successful for attaining reduced residual liquid phase concentrations as well as improvements in nitrogen recovery as compared to single-stage operation. Comparing constant and variable stagewise loadings, the final concentration is 10 times lower with variable loadings. The latter is comparable to a level found in only 1% of conventional domestic wastewater volume. Stagewise operation was beneficial from the standpoint of both additional nutrient recovery and for residuals control, with more pronounced benefits for attaining higher quality residual liquid phase concentrations to be disposed of.

Recovery of nutrients from biogas digestate with biochar and clinoptilolite

“…It has been used for nutrient recovery from human urine with high efficiencies (Ganrot et al, 2007(Ganrot et al, , 2008Allar & Beler Baykal, 2015). As a natural mineral, it can be regarded as an easily available and reasonably-priced product since there are many deposits around the world (Inglezakis, 2005).…”

“…Clinoptilolite has been used for decades to remove ammonium from wastewaters (Hedström, 2008) and more recently to recover nutrients from human urine Allar & Beler Baykal, 2015). In this chapter, I…”

“…Although we observed high removal efficiencies, the remaining concentrations in the liquid were between 435 and 2383 mg NH4-N L -1 for ammonium and between 32 and 37 mg PO4-P L -1 for orthophosphate, which are still high from the pollution prevention point of view. Allar & Beler Baykal (2015) studied further treatment of the treated human urine with clinoptilolite by stagewise operation (operating a new column after finalising the previous column)of clinoptilolite columns. They found that stagewise operation resulted in reduced residual concentration in the liquid but provided only limited improvement in terms of nutrient recovery.…”

“…Several studies have described the use of clinoptilolite for ammonium, potassium and orthophosphate recovery with high efficiencies from source-separated human urine (Ganrot et al, 2007(Ganrot et al, , 2008Beler-Baykal et al, 2011;Allar & Beler Baykal, 2015) and the liquid fraction of digestate (Kocatürk et al).…”

“…Both inorganic and organic materials have been used successfully for nutrient sorption. Clinoptilolite (a natural zeolite) has been used to remove nutrients from source-separated urine (Ganrot et al, 2007;Beler-Baykal et al, 2011;Allar & Beler Baykal, 2015) and several studies have described the adsorption of ammonium and other nutrients to biochar, a carbonaceous product from the pyrolysis of biomass (Eldridge & ChengRong, 2010;Hale et al, 2013;Sarkhot et al, 2013;Gai et al, 2014;Jassal et al, 2015;Wang et al, 2015c).…”