Recovery of nutrients from wastewater

• Main Author: Toh, Swee Siang.
• Other Authors: Volodymyr Ivanov
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2010
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Environmental engineering::Water treatment
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/39623
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Eutrophication is a natural occurring process, due to presence of nutrients in the environment. When nutrients are present in excess, process of eutrophication accelerates, and causes environmental problems. Through recovery of nutrients from wastewater, nutrients disposed by humans into the environment could be reduced, thus preventing the acceleration of eutrophication. Methods for nutrient removal from wastewater are readily available, but methods for nutrient recovery have only matured in recent years. In this research report, recovery of ammonium and phosphate from Singapore’s wastewater through precipitation of struvite and ammoniojarosite were explored. Through experiments, optimal conditions for precipitation of struvite from wastewater were determined, with 90% phosphate recovery and 10% ammonium recovery achieved under such conditions. For ammoniojarosite, no previous research was done with the aim of recovering ammonium from wastewater. When experiments were done under recommended conditions for manufacturing synthetic ammoniojarosite, with wastewater as a source of ammonium, 16% ammonium recovery was achieved. These results show the potential of nutrient recovery from Singapore’s wastewater that will ultimately lead to lower nutrient loading to treatment plants and possible economic gains.