Phosphorus recovery from domestic sewage in the form of struvite crystals

• Grant number: 11/07689-9
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: August 01, 2011
• End date: July 31, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Sanitary Engineering - Water Supply and Wastewater Treatment
• Principal Investigator: Dione Mari Morita
• Grantee: Dione Mari Morita
• Host Institution: Escola Politécnica (EP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This project intent to develop and consolidate - for a typical Brazilian sewage - an emerging technology that makes possible the recovery of phosphorus from domestic sewage with a very high purity level. The struvite (magnesium ammonium phosphate hexahydrate) precipitation is considered a low-cost technology which is very promising in the Brazilian reality.As the usage of patterns developed in countries with different characteristics - as for sewage characteristics from richer/poorer countries, or natural water (salts) characteristics of temperate countries with little weathering etc. - is not possible because the reactors' design parameters, and the chemistry and thermodynamics characteristics from struvite are specific for each wastewater and place, thus, must be acquired case-by-case, it is intended to: (1) Optimize the project/design parameters of a reactor of struvite precipitation, for Brazilian sewages (in bench scale). (2) Develop a detailed study on the formation/breakage of the struvite crystals, related to the parameters which influence the crystal growth, in order to elevate the national researches to the state of the art (in bench scale).(3) Evaluate the hydrodynamic conditions on the final product quality (in pilot scale). (AU)