|
Membrane Water Treatment Volume 9, Number 3, May 2018 , pages 163-172 DOI: https://doi.org/10.12989/mwt.2018.9.3.163 |
||
|
The effect of organic matter on the removal of phosphorus through precipitation as struvite and calcium phosphate in synthetic dairy wastewater |
||
Prince Aleta, Sanjai J. Parikh, Amy P. Silchuk, Kate M. Scow, Minseung Park and Sungpyo Kim
|
||
| Abstract | ||
| This study investigated the effect of organic matter on the precipitation of struvite and calcium phosphate for phosphorus recovery from synthetic dairy wastewater. Batch precipitation experiments were performed to precipitate phosphorus from solutions containing PO43- and NH4+ by the addition of Mg2+ and Ca2+, separately, at varying pH, Mg/P and Ca/P molar ratios, and organic matter concentrations. Soluble total organic solids exhibited more inhibition to precipitation due to potential interaction with other dissolved ionic species involved in phosphorus precipitation. Xylan with low total acidity only exhibited significant inhibition at very high concentrations in synthetic wastewater (at up to 100 g/L). No significant inhibition was observed for Mg and Ca precipitation at relatively lower concentrations (at up to 1.2 g/L). MINTEQ simulations show that dissolved organic matter (DOM) as humic substances (HS) can cause significant inhibition even at relatively low concentrations of 0.165 g/L fulvic acid. However, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis suggested that xylan altered the crystal structure of both precipitates and had caused the formation of smaller sized struvite crystals with slightly rougher surfaces This could be due to xylan molecules adhering on the surface of the crystal potentially blocking active sites and limit further crystal growth. Smaller particle sizes will have negative practical impact because of poorer settleability. | ||
| Key Words | ||
| phosphorus recovery; struvite; calcium phosphate | ||
| Address | ||
| Prince Aleta, Minseung Park and Sungpyo Kim: Department of Environmental Systems Engineering, Korea University, Sejong-ro, Sejong City 339-770 Republic of Korea Sanjai J. Parikh, Amy P. Silchuk, Kate M. Scow: Department of Land, Air and Water Resources, University of California, Davis, Ca 95616, United States | ||
