Ureolytic phosphate precipitation from anaerobic effluents

The inhibitory effect of inorganic carbon on phosphate recovery from upflow anaerobic sludge blanket reactor (UASB) effluent as calcium phosphate

After treatment of the wastewater from the potato processing industry in an upflow anaerobic sludge blanket reactor (UASB) the effluent is rich in phosphate and dissolved inorganic carbon (IC). Increasing the pH of the UASB effluent with NaOH to precipitate phosphate as calcium phosphate leads to contamination with magnesium phosphate. Increasing the pH with Ca(OH)₂ had a positive effect on phosphate precipitation, but after increasing the pH with Na₂CO₃ no precipitate was formed. After prior nitrification of the UASB effluent to remove IC, less NaOH was needed to increase the pH and the ions precipitated in a ratio that agreed with calcium phosphate formation. When the pH of the nitrified effluent was increased with Na₂CO₃ neither calcium nor phosphate precipitated. This inhibitory effect of IC on phosphate precipitation as calcium phosphate could not be derived from the saturation indexes calculated by the geochemical modelling program PHREEQC.

Phosphate separation and recovery from wastewater by novel electrodialysis

Stimulated by the depletion of phosphate resources, phosphate recovery systems have been studied in recent years. The use of struvite reactors has proven to be an effective phosphate recovery process. However, the struvite reactor effluent still consists of an excessive amount of phosphate that cannot be recovered nor can be directly discharged. In this study, selectrodialysis (SED) was used to improve the efficiency of phosphate recovery from a struvite reactor: SED was implemented in such a way that phosphate from the effluent of an USAB (upflow anaerobic sludge blanket) reactor was transferred to the recycled effluent of a struvite reactor. Prior to the experiments, synthetic water with chloride and phosphate was used to characterize the efficiency of SED for phosphate separation. Results indicate that SED was successful in concentrating phosphate from the feed stream. The initial current efficiency reached 72%, with a satisfying (9 mmol L(-1)) phosphate concentration. In the experiments with the anaerobic effluent as the phosphate source for enrichment of the effluent of the struvite reactor, the phosphate flux was 16 mmol m(-2) h(-1). A cost evaluation shows that 1 kWh electricity can produce 60 g of phosphate by using a full scale stack, with a desalination rate of 95% on the feed wastewater. Finally, a struvite precipitation experiment shows that 93% of phosphate can be recovered. Thus, an integrated SED-struvite reactor process can be used to improve phosphate recovery from wastewater.