Screening Electrochemical Phosphorous Recovery Conditions in Real and Synthetic Wastewater Streams

Abstract

The recovery of phosphorus (P) from wastewater via electrochemical precipitation is a promising route to improved nutrient recovery due to its ability to be coupled with current wastewater treatment processes, the viability of both small- and large-scale implementation (allowing for dispersed nutrient recovery systems), and utilization of electrons as an energy source (as opposed to chemically induced precipitation). In this talk, electrochemical P recovery from real and synthetic wastewater will be demonstrated, discussed, and contrasted. This study highlights the viability of electrochemical P recovery by considering waste stream composition, energetics of separation, and analyses of recovered products.Specifically, both synthetic and real wastewater was tested under similar stirred batch reactor conditions with various mass transfer conditions, electrode types, and applied potentials. The reactor solution chemistry was based upon an analysis of three real waste streams and time series analyses were used to compare the transient stream conditions to conditions used in P recovery studies. Additionally, materials characterization was performed on the product of various recovery conditions and the implications of reactor conditions are discussed.