• Journal of the Korean Society of Fisheries and Ocean Technology
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• v.52 no.3
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• pp.271-275
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• 2016

Recently, pollution problem in coastal water has become more serious and pollution including red tide serves as a main reason for reduction of fishes resources. Particularly, nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus are the most serious pollutants. Normally, biological wastewater treatment process is used in removing such nutrients. However, it is difficult to adopt the biological wastewater treatment process to a small-scale fish processing factory in case of using seawater as wash water. Thus, removing nutrients through struvite crystallization is investigated in this study for treating shrimp processing wastewater. Experiments were conducted by varying molar ratio of $Mg^{2+}:NH^4-N:PO^4-P$ from 1:1:1 to 2:1:1. It can be concluded that optimum molar ratio is 1:1:1. Struvite crystallization process is compared with chemical coagulation process using PAC and struvite crystallization process is proven as the more effective process in removing nutrients from wastewater. In view of results obtained from these experiments, struvite crystallization process is a promising method in removing nitrogen and phosphorus from wastewater; however, not so good in removing organics. Thus, struvite crystallization process is suitable as the pre-treatment process in treating shrimp processing wastewater and additional biological process is needed to remove organics.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.39 no.8
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• pp.462-469
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• 2017

Eutrophication and shortage of phosphate ore raise the necessity of phosphate removal and recovery from wastewater treatment plants. Especially, a sludge treatment system containing highly concentrated phosphate should be targeted for phosphate removal and recovery. This study thus aimed to evaluate the capability of the struvite crystallization process for phosphate removal and recovery from a sludge treatment system of a wastewater treatment plant. Analysis on phosphate concentrations and masses in the sludge treatment system revealed that digested sludge and centrate have phosphate concentrations and masses, high enough to adopt the struvite crystallization process. Chemical equilibrium modeling indicated that the struvite crystallization reaction substantially occurred with pH higher than 8 and $Mg^{2+}$ concentration 1.2 times higher than its theoretical requirement. A series of batch tests with digested sludge and centrate indicated that the phosphate removal reaction by struvite crystallization followed a first-order kinetics and reached over 80% removal efficiency at equilibrium. Aeration in the batch tests was found to purge $CO_2$ in sludge or centrate and increase pH up to 8.7, without adding NaOH. Thus, we concluded that the struvite crystallization process could be an efficient and economical process for phosphate removal and recovery from a wastewater treatment plant.

• Journal of Animal Science and Technology
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• v.45 no.5
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• pp.875-884
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• 2003

Operational parameters for struvite crystallization, as a process to recover nitrogen and phosphorus resources from animal wastewater, were studied in this research. Crystallization distinctive of NH$_4$-N and PO$_4$$^{3-}$ in accordance to chemical sources, influent pH, aeration and stirring was examined using 2L of working volume of struvite reactor. Also, to find an effective treatment process combining with electrolysis method, removal characteristics of NH$_4$-N and PO$_4$$^{3-}$ in 6 different processes was tested. As chemical sources for the derivation of struvite formation, MgSO$_4$ and MgCl$_2$ were superior to CaCO$_3$ and CaCl$_2$. From experiment which was conducted to know the effects of aeration and stirring on struvite formation, it was revealed that aeration stimulated the crystallization reaction by inducing faster pH increase. While 90% of P removal was achieved within 1 hour under aeration, 14 hours was consumed under stirring condition. Struvite formation under aeration was affected by influent pH. No crystallization was observed at pH 5 level, but active crystallization reaction was induced over pH 6.0. 95% of P removal by struvite formation at pH 6, 7 and 9 was achieved within 3h, 2h and 10 min., respectively. However, over pH 10, operational problem due to excessive foam formation occurred, and blunting of crystallization reaction was observed at pH 11. When consider the pH range of animal wastewater, pH 7 to 9, efficient struvite formation could be achieved by simple aeration, without any chemical usage for pH adjustment. Among tested processes, the treatment process which electrolyzing the supernatant from struvite reactor, providing air to both reactors, showed best pollutant removal efficiencies. In this combined process, the removal efficiencies of NH$_4$-N and PO$_4$$^{3-}$ was 86% and 98%, respectively, and 92.4% of color removal was obtained.

• 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.28 no.8
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• pp.866-871
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• 2006

The nutrient recovery in phosphate crystallization process was investigated by using laboratory scale uptlow reactors, adopting sequencing batch type configuration. The industrial waste lime was used as potential cation source with magnesium salt($MgCl_2$) as control. The research was focused on its successful application in a novel integrated sludge treatment process, which is comprised of a high performance fermenter followed by a crystallization reactor. In the struvite precipitation test using synthetic wastewater first, which has the similar characteristics with the real fermentation effluent, the considerable nutrient removal(about 60%) in both ammonia and phosphate was observed within $0.5{\sim}1$ hr of retention time. The results also revealed that a minor amount(<5%) of ammonia stripping naturally occurred due to the alkaline(pH 9) characteristic in feed substrate. Stripping of $CO_2$ by air did not increase the struvite precipitation rate but it led to increased ammonia removal. In the second experiment using the fermentation effluent, the optimal dosage of magnesium salt for struvite precipitation was 0.86 g Mg $g^{-1}$ P, similar to the mass ratio of the struvite. The optimal dosage of waste lime was 0.3 g $L^{-1}$, resulting in 80% of $NH_4-N$ and 41% of $PO_4-P$ removal, at about 3 hrs of retention time. In the microscopic analysis, amorphous crystals were mainly observed in the settled solids with waste lime but prism-like crystals were observed with magnesium salt. Based on mass balance analysis for an integrated sludge treatment process(fermenter followed by crystallization reactor) for full-scale application(treatment capacity Q=158,880 $m^3\;d^{-1}$), nutrient recycle loading from the crystallization reactor effluent to the main liquid stream would be significantly reduced(0.13 g N and 0.19 g P per $m^3$ of wastewater, respectively). The results of the experiment reveal therefore that the reuse of waste lime, already an industrial waste, in a nutrient recovery system has various advantages such as higher economical benefits and sustainable treatment of the industrial waste.

• 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.

• Proceedings of the Korean Environmental Sciences Society Conference
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• 2018.10a
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• pp.179-179
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• 2018

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.273-278
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• 2007

Modern society has moved from a phosphorus recycling loop, where animal manure and human wastes were spread on farming land to recycle nutrients, to a once-through system, where phosphates are extracted from mined, non-renewable phosphate rock and end up either in landfill(sewage sludge, incinerator ash) or in surface waters. In this research, crystallization of nitrogen and phosphate with natural sources of $Mg^{2+}$ in synthetic water was tested. The operational parameters of pH, mixing time, and the magnesium molar ratio were investigated to find optimal conditions of the MAP precipitation using synthetic wastewater. The removal efficiency of phosphate increased with pH up to 11. By MAP precipitaiton of the synthetic waste water, 94% of the phosphate were eliminated at pH 11. It was found that at least 10 minutes mixing time was required and 20 minutes mixing time was recommended for efficient phosphate removal. High efficiency removal of phosphate was possible when the magnesium molar ratio was 1.0~2.0. The comparative study of different magnesium sources showed that coagulants (PAC) was the more efficient sources than only magnesium. The result showed that 97% of phosphate removal. In conclusion, coagulants (PAC) induced crystallization of struvite and hydroxyapatite was shown to be a technically viable process that could prove cost effective for removing phosphate in wastewater.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.37 no.10
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• pp.583-589
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• 2015

This study was performed to evaluate the feasibility of anaerobic pretreatment for the leachate solubilized from thermal hydrolysis of sewage sludge cake. Overall process for the treatment of sludge cake consists of thermal hydrolysis, crystallization of magnesium, ammonium, and phosphate (MAP) for the leachate and anaerobic digestion of supernatant from MAP crystallization. The experimental evidence showed that the optimum ratio of Mg : P for the struvite crystallization of leachate solubilized from thermal hydrolysis of sludge cake was 1.5 to 1.0 as weight basis at the pH of 9.5. With this operational condition, the removal efficiencies of ammonia nitrogen and phosphorous achieved 50% and 97%, respectively. The mesophilic batch test showed that the ultimate biodegradability of the supernatant from MAP crystallization reached 63% at S/I ratio of 0.5. The readily biodegradable fraction of 90% ($S_1$) of the MAP supernatant BVS (Biodegradable Volatile Solids, $S_0$) degraded with $k_1$ of $0.207day^{-1}$ for the initial 17 days where as the rest slowly biodegradable fraction ($S_2$) of 10% of BVS degraded with $k_2$ of $0.02day^{-1}$ for the rest of the operational period. Semi-Continuously Fed and Mixed Reactor (SCFMR) was chosen as one of the best candidates to treat the MAP supernatant because of its total solids content over 6%. Maximum average biogas production rates reached 0.45 v/v-d and TVS removal efficiency of 37~41% was achieved at an hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 20 days and its corresponding organic loading rate (OLR) of 1.43 g VS/L-d.