• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.32 no.7
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• pp.730-737
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• 2010

It is very important to remove fluoride ion before treating semiconductor wastewater containing high concentration of ammonia, phosphates, and fluoride ions by struvite formation. Calcium ion was generally added for the removal of fluoride ion. However, calcium ions remained after removal of fluoride ion can deteriorate the performance of struvite crystalization. It should be removed completely before struvite formation. In this study, the effect of fluoride and calcium ion concentration on the struvite crystalization was investigated. Removal efficiencies of ortho-phosphate with struvite formation were more abruptly decreased than those of ammonium nitrogen, as increase of fluoride ion concentration in synthetic wastewater. The structures of struvite formed in synthetic wastewater containing calcium ion of up to 500 mg/L were identical. Purity of struvite was deteriorated as increase of calcium ion over 500 mg/L. Removal efficiencies of ammonium nitrogen were more decreased than those of phosphate ions as increase of cacium ion in synthetic wastewater.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.28 no.7
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• pp.1053-1060
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• 2015

In this study, the optimal operation factors for struvite crystallization for removing and recovering nitrogen and phosphorus from anaerobic digestive fluid of swine manure containing highly concentrated nitrogen was determined. Every experiment for the struvite crystallization reaction was conducted by placing 1,000 mL of digestion fluid in a 2,000 mL Erlenmeyer flask at various temperatures, pH, and mixing speed. Except for special circumstances, the digestion fluid was centrifuged (10,000 rpm, 10 min) and then the supernatant was used for the experiment at room temperature and 100 rpm. The optimal mole ratio of $PO_4{^{3-}}:Mg^{2+}$ was 1:1.5, and the pH effect ranging from 9 to 11 was similar, when mixed for 1 hour. Under this condition, the removal efficiency of $NH_4{^+}-N$ and $PO_4{^{3-}}-P$ was 40% and 88.6%, respectively. X-shaped crystal was observed by light and scanning electron microscopy. In addition, struvite crystal structure was confirmed through X-ray diffraction analysis.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.54-62
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• 2011

This study was undertaken to investigate the effects of bone waste on the conservation of nitrogen in aerobic composting process by inducing the struvite crystallization, which was known as a powerful method for conservation of nitrogen in composting reaction. Bone waste was dried at oven and crushed to less than 3 mm prior to use. It was found phosphorus content in bone waste was about 20.9% of the fixed solids from the leaching experiments using sulfuric acid. Addition of seed compost affected the progress of composting reaction substantially. In case seed compost was not used, the duration of initial low pH was greater than seed compost was added. This prolonged acidic pH may have a beneficial effect on the leaching of P from the bone waste and struvite crystallization. The struvite crystallization and resulting conservation of nitrogen by addition of bone waste was confirmed by both reduction in ammonia loss and increased ammonia content in compost. However the level of struvite crystallization observed with bone waste addition may be less than the cases water-soluble phosphate salts were used.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.325-331
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• 2007

This study was aimed to find out methods for preventing scale formation from the struvite treated water, and improving ammonium nitrogen removal efficiency in the application of struvite crystallization for ammonium fluoride wastewater wastement. During the struvite mystallization seeding effects varied with G.td value applied as mixing conditions in the experiment. The removal efficiency of ammonium nitrogen$(NH_4^+-N)$ and phosphorus$(PO_4^{3-}-P)$ increased over 90% in the condition of low $G{\cdot}t_d$ value. In the experiment with seeding, $G{\cdot}t_d$ value was shown to decease four times lower than the one without seeding. When adding over 2% seeding materials in the total water volume, ammonium nitrogen removal efficiencies gradually increased, of which observation was also revealed in a paired-sample T-test with 95% reliability.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.387-391
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• 2015

This study was performed to evaluate the effect of pH (8-12) and molar ratio of magnesium and phosphate ($[Mg^{2+}]/[PO_4{^{3-}}]$) (0.6-1.4) on struvite crystallization of anaerobic digester supernatant using seawater as magnesium source. pH range of 9-10 is favorable for ammonium and phosphate recoveries. The recovery efficiency of ammonium was highest at $[Mg^{2+}]/[PO_4{^{3-}}]$ of 1.0 and pH 10. On the other hand, high phosphate recovery efficiency (> 99%) was achieved at ($[Mg^{2+}]/[PO_4{^{3-}}]$) of 1.4 and pH 10. The results demonstrated that seawater can be considered as low-cost magnesium source to recover phosphorus from anaerobic digester supernatant.

• Korean Journal of Mineralogy and Petrology
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.29-39
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• 2020

A series of struvite (MgNH₄PO₄·6H₂O) was synthesized and dried at various temperatures (15-60℃). Crystallization of struvite and its structural properties were significantly influenced by synthetic and drying temperature. Struvite was favorably formed at synthetic temperatures ≤30℃ with an inverse relationship between the crystallinity and synthetic temperature. The crystallinity of struvite was also significantly reduced by an increase in drying temperature from 45℃ to 60℃ due to the loss of structural water molecules and ammonium ions by the facilitated thermal decomposition. However, struvite formed at lower synthetic temperature showed higher crystallinity, and its amorphization by thermal decomposition was inhibited. These results demonstrate that struvite formed at low temperature with an stable condition thermodynamically through favorable crystallization shows high crystallinity and stability with respect to the structural and thermal resistance.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.12-18
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• 2017

Struvite precipitation has been proven to be an effective method in removing and recovering ammonia nitrogen (N) and phosphate phosphorus (P) from wastewater. In this study, effects of pH, molar ratios and pre-treatment of effluent of anaerobically digested swine wastewater were investigated to improve struvite crystallization. The magnesium : ammonium : phosphate ratio of 1.2 : 1.0 : 1.0 was found to be optimal, yet the molar ratio in the wastewater was 1 : 74.9 : 1.8. From the analysis, the optimum pH was between 8.0 and 9.0 for maximal phosphate P release and from 8.0 to 10.0 for maximal ammonia N and phosphate P removal from real wastewater. Analysis from Visual MINTEQ predicted the pH range of 7-11 for ammonia N and phosphate P removal and recovery as struvite. For pre-treatment, microwave pre-treatment was ineffective for phosphate P release but ultrasound pre-treatment showed up to 77.4% phosphate P release at 1,000 kJ/L of energy dose. Precipitates analysis showed that phosphorus and magnesium in the collected precipitate had almost same values as theoretical values, but the ammonia content was less than the theoretical value.

• Journal of Radiation Industry
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.313-317
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• 2010

The struvite crystallization was applied to remove $NH_4{^+}$ in livestock wastewater. The ammonium ions can be very toxic to the aquatic creatures. In this experiments, the livestock wastewater from Gongju livestock wastewater treatment plant was used. The behaviors of various parameters such as pH, mole ratio of $Mg^{2+}$ : $NH_4{^+}$ : $PO{_4}^{3-}$ and reaction temperature for struvite crystallization of livestock wastewater and the effect of gamma ray irradiation were evaluated. As results, for the pH variation, the $NH_4{^+}$ removal efficiency showed the highest, 88%, at pH 9~9.25. The removal efficiency of $NH_4{^+}$, $Mg^{2+}$ and $PO{_4}^{3-}$ was showed highest when same molar ratio of $Mg^{2+}$ and $PO{_4}^{3-}$ were applied. The $NH_4{^+}$ removal efficiency showed 82% at $7^{\circ}C$, and 90% at $30^{\circ}C$ with temperature. When the wastewater was irradiated with 20 kGy of gamma ray, $NH_4{^+}$ was removed as much as 83%.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.33 no.11
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• pp.783-789
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• 2011

Recently, auto-thermal thermophilic aerobic digestion (ATAD) has a great attention for destruction of wasted sludge biomass in wastewater treatment plant. Reduction of sludge concentration has been successfully achieved with pilot scale ATAD and ceramic filtration process in field condition. However, high concentration of COD, total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) was observed in filtrate, which should be treated before recirculation of filtrate to biological wastewater treatment plant. This study was focused on removal of nitrogen and phosphorus contained in the filtrate of ATAD, using struvite crystallization method. The effect of operational and environmental parameters (such as, N, P and Mg ion concentration and molar ratio, pH, reaction time, agitation strength, seed dosage, and reaction temperature) on the treatment of TN and TP with struvite crystallization were evaluated. Magnesium (as $MgCl_26H_2O$) and phosphorus (as $K_2HPO_4$) ions were, if necessary, added to increase nitrogen removal efficiency by the crystal formation. Average concentration of $NH_4^+-N$ and $PO_4^{3-}-P$ of the filtrate were 1716.5 mg/L and 325.5 mg/L, respectively. Relationship between removal efficiencies of nitrogen and phosphorus and molar ratios of $Mg^{2+}$ and $PO_4^{3-}-P$ to $NH_4^+-N$ was examined. Crystal formation and nitrogen removal efficiencies were significantly increased as increasing molar ratios of magnesium and phosphorus to nitrogen. As molar ratio of $Mg^{2+}:PO_4^{3-}-P:NH_4^+-N$ were maintained to 2 : 1 : 1 and 2 : 2 : 1, removal efficiencies of nitrogen and phosphorus were 71.6% and 99.9%, and 93.8% and 98.6%, respectively. However, the effect of reaction time, mixing intensity, seed dose and temperature on the struvite crystallization reaction was not significant, comparing to those of molar ratios. Settled sludge volume after struvite crystallization was observed to be reduced with increase of seed dose and to be increased at high temperature.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.599-607
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• 2000

In this research, ${NH_4}^+-N$ and ${PO_4}^{3-}-P$ in wastewater were removed by crystallization. Nitrogen and phosphate have been regarded as key nutrients in the eutrophication of rivers and lakes. Struvite, $MgNH_4PO_4{\cdot}6H_2O$, is insoluble in alkaline solutions. Fertilizer industry wastewater contains organic and nitrogen concentration of 330 mg/L and 550 mg/L, respectively. Nitrogen in this wastewater cannot be treated by conventional biological treatment without physicochemical pretreatment, because nitrogen concentration is relatively high compared to organic concentration. Magnesium ions used in this study were from bittern and commercial magnesium salts of $MgCl_2$ and $Mg(OH)_2$. Bittern obtained as a by-product of seasalt manufacture contains $8,000mg\;Ca^{2+}/L$ and $32,000mg\;Mg^{2+}/L$. Optimum initial pH was 10.5~11.0 and the reaction was complete or done in 2 min. Nitrogen removal efficiency using bittern, $MgCl_2 $ and $Mg(OH)_2$ (as source of $Mg^{2+}$) was 71 %, 81% and 83%. respectively. Phosphate removal efficiency was 99%, 98% and 93%, respectively. Therefore, bittern, $MgCl_2$ and $Mg(OH)_2$ can be efficiently used as $Mg^{2+}$ source for crystallization of nitrogen and phosphate. However, bittern is economically favorable $Mg^{2+}$ source for removing nitrogen and phosphate in wastewater.