Phosphorus recovery from anaerobic effluent by adsorption

Sustainable waste management and resource recovery-oriented wastewater treatment are becoming more and more important day by day, arguing that every waste is actually a new resource and more attention should be paid to recovery before the existing limited resources are exhausted. Many wastes suitable for recovery are generated in wastewater treatment plants, but due to the lack of technology and high costs, the process cannot be carried out. In this study, it is aimed to recover the phosphorus, which is found in high amounts in the upper leachate of the anaerobic digester, which cannot be recycled in the treatment plant and no recovery process can be performed. For this purpose, it was aimed to recover phosphorus from anaerobic effluent by adsorption method. Clinoptilolite mineral, a type of zeolite, was used as adsorbent in the adsorption process. In the preliminary studies, it was found that particle size in the range of 1-2 mm, dose amount 5 g, temperature value 25 ℃, pH value 6-7 and mixing process lasting 24 hours gave the best phosphorus removal efficiency for clinoptilolite. Under these conditions, the highest phosphorus removal efficiency was found to be 94,07% when the dose amount was 12 g in the adsorption process by adjusting the dose amount as 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 g. In the modelling process performed with the Design Expert programme, the highest phosphorus removal efficiency of 98,69% was found when the dose amount was 12 g, pH value was 6,02 and temperature value was 29,9 ℃. It was seen in the ANOVA test that the phosphorus removal efficiency was very high both in the experimental study and in the programme modelling results and the results were close to each other. The results of this research showed that a high amount of phosphorus can be recovered from anaerobic upper leachate with clinoptilolite.