(Invited) Selective Ammonia Separation Using Prussian Blue Analogues

Abstract

Prussian blue analogues (PBAs) are a three-dimensional coordination polymer with iron and transition metals bridged with cyanide ligands, creating open-framework structures for hosting guest ions into interstitial sites. These sites can be occupied by cations via adsorption/desorption or intercalation/deintercalation, which has been widely utilized in developing separation processes and energy storage devices. Additionally, it has been well established that the size of the channel provides selectivity between monovalent cations based on their hydrated radii. Using these unique functionalities allows for selective ammonia recovery from wastewater. The feasibility of selective separation has been demonstrated using PBA-based electrodes that showed reversible and selective intercalation/deintercalation of NH4 + by cyclic operation. To enable continuous separation, we recently developed an electrochemically driven membrane process, where PBAs provided selective ion-conducting channels. An improved selectivity for NH4 + relative to Na+ was achieved using synthetic and domestic wastewaters, which was attributed to a thin layer of PBA created on the surface of a cation exchange membrane. These results collectively show that the use of PBAs for selective ammonia separation could lead to the development of efficient electrochemical processes for nutrient recovery.