Articolo in rivista, 2022, ENG, 10.1016/j.jece.2022.108829

Ammonium recovery from municipal wastewater by ion exchange: Development and application of a procedure for sorbent selection

Davide Pinelli, Alessia Foglia, Francesco Fatone, Elettra Papa, Carla Maggetti, Sara Bovina, Dario Frascari

Department of Civil, Chemical, Environmental and Materials Engineering, University of Bologna, Via Terracini 28, 40131 Bologna, Italy Department of Science and Engineering of Materials, Environment and Urban Planning-SIMAU, Marche Polytechnic University, Via Brecce Bianche 12, 60131 Ancona, Italy National Research Council of Italy, Institute of Science and Technology for Ceramics (CNR-ISTEC), Via Granarolo 64, 48018 Faenza, Italy

Ion exchange represents one of the most promising processes for ammonium recovery from municipal wastewater (MWW). However, most previous studies on ammonium ion exchange did not optimize the process or evaluate its robustness under real operational conditions. This experimental study aimed at (i) developing a procedure for the selection of a sorbent for selective ammonium removal/recovery from MWW, (ii) validating the procedure by applying it to several sorbents, (iii) performing a preliminary optimization and robustness assessment of ammonium removal/recovery with the selected sorbent. The application of the procedure to natural and synthetic zeolites and a cation exchange resin confirmed that batch isotherm tests need to be integrated by continuous-flow tests. The selected sorbent, a natural mixture of Chabazite and Phillipsite, resulted in high performances in terms of cation exchange capacity (33 mgN gdry resin - 1 ), ammonium operating capacity (5.2 mgN gdry resin - 1 ), ammonium recovery yield (78-91%) and selectivity towards ammonium. The process performances resulted stable during 7 adsorption/desorption cycles conducted with MWW treatment plant effluents in a 60-cm column. The switch to a highly saline effluent produced in a hotspot of seawater intrusion did not determine significant changes in performances. Contact time was reduced to 6 min without any decrease in performances. Potassium - well tolerated by crops - was selected as the regenerating agent, in the perspective to produce a desorbed product to be re-used as fertilizer. The study shows that Chabazite/Phillipsite has a high capacity to recover ammonium from MWW in a circular economy approach.

Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering 10 , pp. 108829–?

Keywords

Ion-exchange, adsorption, wastewater treatment, natural zeolites, resource recovery, circular economy

CNR authors

Papa Elettra

CNR institutes

ISSMC – Istituto di Scienza, Tecnologia e Sostenibilità per lo Sviluppo dei Materiali Ceramici

ID: 472884

Year: 2022

Type: Articolo in rivista

Creation: 2022-11-08 10:33:25.000

Last update: 2022-11-21 16:22:12.000

CNR authors

External links

OAI-PMH: Dublin Core

OAI-PMH: Mods

OAI-PMH: RDF

DOI: 10.1016/j.jece.2022.108829

External IDs

CNR OAI-PMH: oai:it.cnr:prodotti:472884

DOI: 10.1016/j.jece.2022.108829