Chemical Engineering Journal, Vol.335, 665-675, 2018
Dolomite application for the removal of nutrients from synthetic swine wastewater by a novel combined electrochemical process
The present study provides a novel combined electrochemical process for the simultaneous removal of the total ammonium nitrogen (TAN) and phosphate from synthetic swine wastewater. This combined electrochemical process includes an electrolysis reactor for TAN removal and a decarbonation reactor for phosphate removal. Dolomite was added to the electrolysis reactor, to enhance the removal of TAN and phosphate. From the results it was evident that the dolomite application was beneficial to the stability of the solution pH and removal of TAN and phosphate. Based on this, the effects of the NaCl dosage, voltage and temperature on the TAN electrolysis were further investigated. The findings revealed that the increased NaCl dosage and electrolysis voltage raised the removal of the TAN alone, whereas the increase in the temperature simultaneously enhanced the removal of both TAN and phosphate. When the electrolysis was conducted at a temperature of 20 degrees C, with an electrolysis voltage of 20 V, and an NaCl dosage of 6 g/L, and a dolomite dosage of 10 g/L for 270 min, the removal efficiencies for TAN and phosphate reached 95.1% and 23.6%, respectively. To further boost the phosphate removal, the mixed solution, post electrolysis, was precipitated and the resulting supernatant was stripped at an aeration rate of 4 L/min for 120 min, which induced a phosphate-removal efficiency of > 95%. An economic analysis indicated that the process proposed here could provide an expenditure savings of about $1.7 in terms of chemical costs for the removal of TAN per kg compared with the electrolytic process without the addition of dolomite.