Phosphorus Recovery from Wastewater

Derek Soils and Ecosystems EVR4592 Spring2012 INTRODUCTION As phosphorus worldwide resources drop lower and lower each year and as agriculture increases each year, it has lead scientist to wonder, what the options are that can prolong the inevitable with declining phosphorus. One of the biggest concerns is that the phosphorus that is being used, a large quantity is drained away into groundwater and eventually going into bigger sources of water such as lakes, ponds, and seas. With that being said, there is a large amount of the element in the water that is being left behind for many years and only causing more damage than good in there. Scientists are now working on how to recover the phosphorus from these waterways and find a useable way to somehow give it a second life and be used once again. Reserves of exploitable phosphorus rock are limited but are expected to last more than one hundred years at current exploitation rates. It is therefore vital in the long-term for sustainable development, if we are to continue to feed the worlds population, to re-establish systems of phosphorus recycling. I will explain methods on how different companies are working on trying to solve this worldwide problem and how useful it will be once it is solved. PHOSPHORUS RECOVERY IN PONDS

Phosphate recovery reduces consumption of phosphate rock resources and reduces energy consumption (greenhouse gas emissions). Recycling of phosphate from sewage saves energy (compared to manufacture and transport of fertiliser from phosphate rock) and can now bring operators 4 6 tonnes of greenhouse gas credits per tonne of fertiliser produced. One process for recovery of elemental phosphorus from waste ponds is by dredging the waste pond to obtain aqueous phosphorus slurry, separating particles larger than 2 mm from the slurry. Treating the remaining slurry in an initial hydrocyclone and removing an overflow of solids larger than 500 micrometers, treating the underflow from the initial hydrocyclones in smaller diameter hydrocyclones, removing a second overflow enriched in slimes and diminished in phosphorus. Removing a second underflow enriched in phosphorus and diminished in slimes and heating it sufficiently to melt the phosphorus therein, treating the heated second underflow in a centrifugal separator, and separating and recovering a stream of coalesced phosphorus from a heavy fraction of impurities. PHOSPHORUS RECOVER IN STREAMS Phosphorus can be recovered from phosphorus rich side-streams in wastewater treatment plants with biological phosphorus removal. Different variants exist for instance the PhoStrip process, in which phosphorus is recovered from the return sludge. Soluble phosphate is released at anaerobic treatment of return or excess sludge of phosphorus rich sludge from the activated sludge processes with biological phosphorus removal. Another alternative is to recover phosphorus from a side stream taken out from the anaerobic part of the activated sludge process, where phosphorus has been released to the solution. Phosphate rich streams

can also be combined with ammonium rich streams for recovering of phosphorus as struvite, magnesium ammonium phosphate. Anaerobic treatment of sludge in digestion chambers gives a supernatant with high concentration of ammonium and depending on the sludge composition under certain conditions also phosphate. Phosphate can be released from the sludge but also be precipitated by metal ions or by adsorption. Phosphorus recovery from phosphorus rich partial side-streams is estimated to give a degree of phosphorus recovery of 60 - 65 % and thereby comply with the requirement of the Environmental Protection Agency on 60 % phosphorus recovery in year 2015. CONCLUSION As shown from above, phosphorus recovery for reuse has a wide range of sources where it can be attained. As technology increases, it now a major race to come out with the technology that can be widely used across the world before the few phosphorus mines run out of minerals. As some companies are already starting to recover some of the nutrients being dumped, I believe it is a very good start for future inventions. It is better to recover some of what is being dumped than getting nothing at all and using up what remaining resources that the world has available.

REFERENCES The Phosphorus Challenge: managing a resource with complex patterns http://www.phosphorus-recovery.tu-darmstadt.de/ Recovery of phosphorus from waste ponds

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4492627.html

E. Levlin and B. Hultman. PHOSPHORUS RECOVERY FROM PHOSPHATE RICH SIDESTREAMS IN WASTEWATER TREATMENT PLANTS http://www2.lwr.kth.se/forskningsprojekt/Polishproject/JPS10s47.pdf