Treatment of high-concentration phosphorus wastewater based on foamed concrete

Abstract

Phosphorus is a nonrenewable resource, and the recovery of phosphorus from wastewater containing high concentrations of phosphorus is of great importance. In this work, a novel method for highly efficient treatment of high-concentration phosphorus-containing wastewater (50 mg/L, 100 mg/L and 150 mg/L) with low energy consumption was developed by using the block waste foam concrete (FC) as a potential phosphorus recovery material. The results showed that acid leaching significantly improved the accumulation efficiency of phosphorus in calcium hydroxyphosphate (HAP) via accelerating the release of calcium in wastewater. The recovery rate of phosphorus could reach 99.0% under the pH value of 9.0 at 25 °C, using 2.0 g FC. It was also found that the microporous structure of the surface of FC provided the adsorption sites for phosphorus, resulting in the adsorption rate in different concentrations of phosphorus-containing wastewater up to 14.5%. It indicated that FC achieved the recovery of phosphorus from high-concentration phosphorus-containing wastewater by coupling HAP crystallization and physical adsorption to polyphosphorus.

Keywords:

• Recovery
• hydroxyphosphate
• acid leaching
• calcium
• adsorption

Acknowledgments

Yuecheng He and Yue Jian contributed equally to this work. The whole process of this research was completed at the Chongqing Academy of Animal Husbandry. Thanks to YueJian for providing laboratory and experimental equipment support.

Data availability statement

All data, models, and code generated or used during the study appear in the submitted article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the State Key Laboratory of Geohazard Prevention and Geoenvironment Protection Foundation (SKLGP2020Z011) and Chongqing Special Financial Funds Project (19511).