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- Phosphorus recovery (5) (entfernen)
The Rietveld method was used to reliably interpret severely superimposed diffraction patterns of a sewage sludge ash before and after being turned into an ecologically desirable, high-quality fertilizer by a newly-developed method of thermochemical treatment. The thermochemical treatment causes severe changes in the phase composition of the ash, which can be described as a mixture of a large number of solid solution phases.
The advantages and drawbacks of existing wet chemical phosphorus (P) recovery technologies, their applicability to different types of sewage sludge ash (SSA) and the role of the decay products of detergent zeolites as a source of reactive Al in SSA are analyzed. Since neither a purely acidic nor a purely alkaline treatment are able to provide satisfactory technical solutions a wet chemical phosphorus (P) recovery process for sewage sludge ashes (SSAs) is investigated in detail that is based on a sequential treatment of SSA with an acid and a base. As a result of an acidic pre-treatment, the P fraction of the raw SSA that was bound as – alkaline-insoluble – calcium phosphate (Ca–P) is converted into aluminum phosphate (Al–P). This newly formed Al–P can be easily dissolved via alkaline treatment and then easily separated from the alkaline leachate via precipitation of Ca–P. The Al-component can be reused as precipitant for P-removal in waste water treatment plants (WWTPs). The investigated process requires fewer chemicals than the direct acidic dissolution of all P-compounds contained in the SSA. This is due to the described rearrangement of the P component from Ca–P to Al–P. That such a rearrangement of P occurs indeed was confirmed through a combination of XRD, ICP and XRF analyses together with mass balance calculations. The present investigation proves that the process works for very different types of SSAs: For Al-rich SSAs that come from WWTPs where Al-salt is used for chemical P-removal the described sequential treatment process works best and yields P-recovery rates as high as 70–77%. But even for SSAs from WWTPs where only iron salt is used for chemical P-removal, a considerable amount of the reactive Al necessary for the described P-rearrangement is supplied by decay products of detergent zeolites, a hidden Al-source present in most SSAs produced in Europe.
The potential of a new wet chemical process for phosphorus and aluminium recovery from sewage sludge ash by sequential elution with acidic and alkaline solutions has been investigated: SESAL-Phos (sequential elution of sewage sludge ash for aluminium and phosphorus recovery). Its most innovative aspect is an acidic pre-treatment step in which calcium is leached from the sewage sludge ash. Thus the percentage of alkaline soluble aluminium phosphates is increased from 20 to 67%. This aluminium phosphate is then dissolved in alkali. Subsequently, the dissolved phosphorus is precipitated as calcium phosphate with low heavy metal content and recovered from the alkaline solution. Dissolved aluminium is recovered and may be reused as a precipitant in wastewater treatment plants.
The sequence of reactions accompanying the thermochemical treatment of an iron- and aluminium-bearing sewage sludge ash was ascertained by investigating two systematic series of samples. The ash was thermochemically treated in a lab-scale rotary furnace after mixing it with a chlorine-donor, either CaCl2 or MgCl2. Within each of these two sample series only a single process parameter, the reaction temperature, was varied, namely between 350 and 1050°C. It was found, that among the numerous crystalline phases present in the raw ash only quartz and hematite continue to exist after thermochemical treatments carried out at 1050°C, whereas all other components undergo at least one decomposition-recrystallization cycle. Some of the components re-crystallize even several times. It was proved that the restructuring of the calcium- and phosphorus-bearing mineral phases proceeds via the formation of chlorspodioside, Ca2PO4Cl. The influence of the type of chlorine-donor on the final product was elucidated in detail and - to the best of our knowledge - for the first time crystalline AlPO4 was found in a sewage sludge ash and its decomposition was investigated, too.
Stocks of high grade phosphate rock are becoming scarce, and there is growing concern about potentially harmful impurities in conventional phosphorus fertilizers. Sewage sludge ash is a promising secondary phosphorus source. However, to remove heavy metals and convert the phosphorus contained in sewage sludge ash into mineral phases available to plants, an after-treatment is required. Laboratory-scale calcination experiments of sewage sludge ash blended with sodium salts using dried sewage sludge as a reducing agent were carried out at 1000 °C. Thus, the Ca3(PO4)2 or whitlockite component of raw sewage sludge ash, which is not readily plant available, was converted to CaNaPO4 (buchwaldite). Consequently, nearly complete phosphorus solubility in ammonium citrate (a well-established indicator for plant availability) was achieved. Moreover, it was shown that Na2CO3 may be replaced by moderately priced Na2SO4. However, molar ratios of Na/P > 2 were required to achieve >80% phosphorus solubility. Such over-stoichiometric Na consumption is largely caused by side reactions with the SiO2 component of the sewage sludge ash – an explanation for which clear evidence is provided for the first time.