Ammonia removal and recovery from municipal landfill leachates by heating

Evaluation of Different Capture Solutions for Ammonia Recovery in Suspended Gas Permeable Membrane Systems

Gas permeable membranes (GPM) are a promising technology for the capture and recovery of ammonia (NH3). The work presented herein assessed the impact of the capture solution and temperature on NH3 recovery for suspended GPM systems, evaluating at a laboratory scale the performance of eight different trapping solutions (water and sulfuric, phosphoric, nitric, carbonic, carbonic, acetic, citric, and maleic acids) at 25 and 2 °C. At 25 °C, the highest NH3 capture efficiency was achieved using strong acids (87% and 77% for sulfuric and nitric acid, respectively), followed by citric and phosphoric acid (65%) and water (62%). However, a remarkable improvement was observed for phosphoric acid (+15%), citric acid (+16%), maleic acid (+22%), and water (+12%) when the capture solution was at 2 °C. The economic analysis showed that water would be the cheapest option at any working temperature, with costs of 2.13 and 2.52 €/g N (vs. 3.33 and 3.43 €/g N for sulfuric acid) in the winter and summer scenarios, respectively. As for phosphoric and citric acid, they could be promising NH3 trapping solutions in the winter months, with associated costs of 3.20 and 3.96 €/g N, respectively. Based on capture performance and economic and environmental considerations, the reported findings support that water, phosphoric acid, and citric acid can be viable alternatives to the strong acids commonly used as NH3 adsorbents in these systems.

Nitrification performance evaluation of activated sludge under high potassium ion stress during high-ammonia nitrogen organic wastewater treatment

The recycling reverse osmosis (RO) membrane concentrate of some high-ammonia nitrogen (NH₄⁺-N) organic wastewater to the biological unit could cause potassium ion (K⁺) accumulation, thereby affecting the removal of NH₄⁺-N by activated sludge. Thus, the effects of high K⁺ stress on activated sludge nitrification performance was studied. The results showed that the high K⁺ stress promoted the floc sludge to produce more extracellular polymers (EPS), which accelerated the sludge sedimentation and enriched the biomass in sequential batch reactors (SBRs). The ammonia oxidation process and nitrite (NO₂^--N) oxidation process were further analyzed in the nitrification process. High K⁺ stress enriched ammonia oxidizing bacteria (AOB), which ensured the efficient ammonia oxidation process in SBRs, and ensured the removal rate of NH₄⁺-N was maintained above 93%. However, high K⁺ stress (15g/L KCl) inhibited the activity of NO₂^--N oxidizing bacteria (NOB) and reduced the abundance of NOB, thus leading to the accumulation of NO₂^--N, and finally worsened the nitrification performance of activated sludge. In short, the performance of activated sludge will not be inhibited when the K⁺ in the wastewater does not exceed 5.23 g/L. The results could provide a reference for the optimization of the biological performance in treating high-NH₄⁺-N organic wastewater with activated sludge coupled RO membrane treatment process.

Membrane Distillation for Wastewater Treatment: A Mini Review

Water serves as an indispensable part of human life and production. On account of the overexploitation of traditional water sources, the demand for wastewater recycling is expanding rapidly. As a promising water treatment process, membrane distillation (MD) has been utilized in various wastewater treatments, such as desalination brine, textile wastewater, radioactive wastewater, and oily wastewater. This review summarized the investigation work applying MD in wastewater treatment, and the performance was comprehensively introduced. Moreover, the obstructions of industrialization, such as membrane fouling, membrane wetting, and high energy consumption, were discussed with the practical investigation. To cope with these problems, various strategies have been adopted to enhance MD performance, including coupling membrane processes and developing membranes with specific surface characteristics. In addition, the significance of nutrient recovery and waste heat utilization was indicated.

A New Process for the Recovery of Ammonia from Ammoniated High-Salinity Brine

This paper describes a new method for the recovery of high-concentration ammonia from water in the form of ammonium chloride, ammonium hydroxide and ammonium carbonate. The method was applied to the Solvay process, in which sodium bicarbonate is produced through the reaction of ammoniated brine and CO2 gas. The Solvay effluent contains ammonia in the form of soluble ammonium chloride. The proposed method is based on the recovery of ammonia using a high-alkalinity reactant, calcium oxide (CaO), in a closed electrocoagulation cell operating at a specific current density. The recovered ammonia is collected as a gas within a closed cell containing deionized (DI) water at room temperature. Afterwards, the collected solution (DI water–NH3 gas) is concentrated through a separate process, and is then reused in the Solvay process and other applications. The electrocoagulation process is applied to the treatment cell using aluminum electrodes and a current density of 5–15 mA/cm2. After 7 h of treatment using the electrocoagulation cell, a high reduction of the ammonia concentration—99%—was realized after ~9 h of the electrochemical treatment. The initial ammonia concentration in a Solvay effluent of 13,700 mg/L N was decreased to 190 mg/L N. Furthermore, an ammonia recovery of 77.1% in the form of ammonium hydroxide was achieved. Generally, this process, which starts at room temperature, can result in an energy reduction of 80%—from 7.8 to 2.3 kWh/kg NH3—compared to conventional processes, which entail heating the Solvay effluents to 160 °C. The proposed system and method were found to be suitable for the recovery of ammonia from ammoniated water, and can be utilized for the treatment of landfill leachate, and municipal and industrial wastewater.

Assessment of municipal solid waste management system in Lae City, Papua New Guinea in the context of sustainable development

ABSTRACT

Lae City (LC) of Morobe Province is the second-largest city in Papua New Guinea. Due to the abundant natural resources it inherits, the resultant urbanization has led to an influx of the human population. This increase in population as a result of industrialization has led to increased municipal solid waste (MSW) accumulation. To address this exigent issue, which affects the nation's carbon footprint, it is imperative to review socio-economic and geographic factors to establish a feasible approach for managing MSW efficiently and sustainably. In the quest to achieve the same, the present assessment focuses on the 3 core waste management hierarchy systems to support sustainable development for LC by reviewing existing opportunities and challenges associated with the current MSW management system and the associated policies. The result shows that as a sustainable approach to MSW management of LC, a zero-waste campaign for resource recovery engaging all stakeholders can be implemented since the organic content of MSW generated in LC is as high as 70%. Moreover, the dumping of MSW at the dedicated dumpsite site can be minimized if policies are strengthened and the proposed waste avoidance pathway is implemented strictly. In addition to this, to avoid the contamination of groundwater and recovery of methane, the use of the Fukuoka approach in the existing landfills has been suggested to capture leachate without any huge expenditure.

Evaluation of wastewater treatment performance to a field-scale constructed wetland system at clogged condition: A case study of ammonia manufacturing plant

Assessment of the treatment performance in the field-scale hybrid constructed wetland (CW) for ammonia manufacturing plant remains limited. After being in operations running on and off since 2014, the hybrid CW which treats effluent from the ammonia manufacturing plant in Peninsular, Malaysia has recently demonstrated the full clogging to the CW. It takes only 8 months to demonstrate a big deterioration of performance in 2019. Though the mechanism of clogging is not clear, which can be partially from inherent design problems or operational issues, nonetheless, it is important to evaluate how this clogging has impacted the effluent treatment performance and the continuous utilization of the CW. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of the treatment performance on the ammoniacal nitrogen and COD removal when the CW is clogged. The result revealed that there is no impact on COD removal, but it has a substantial impact on the ammoniacal nitrogen removal. The ammoniacal nitrogen removal dropped to negative (outlet concentration is higher than inlet concentration) during the clogged period. Another observation is, the low removal rate also coincides with a high COD/N ratio, when the COD/N ratio increased to >2, the ammoniacal nitrogen removal rate dropped substantially, with the coefficient of determination, R² of 40.5%. The root cause for the clogging to develop in a short period of time is unidentified. However, it is still worth noting that COD and ammoniacal nitrogen efficiency did not behave the same at the clogged CW.

Ammonia recovery from air stripping process applied to landfill leachate treatment

The leachate is a type of effluent from landfills containing high concentrations of ammonia, even after normal treatment procedures are applied. Due to its characteristic, the leachate can adversely impact the environment and public health. Leachate treatment seeks to remove a series of compounds with adverse characteristics present in this type of effluent. Ammonia nitrogen is the main problem, easily observed in concentrations near 2000 mg/L. The effluents with high concentrations of ammonia nitrogen can stimulate the growth of algae, reduce the dissolved oxygen in rivers, and cause toxicity on the aquatic biota, even in low concentrations. Many research for treatment methods aiming to remove this compound, specifically, have been increasingly deeper, mainly by physical-chemical processes. This study aimed to test the process of air stripping in a closed system and pilot scale, applied on leachate treatment of landfills, to remove the high concentrations of ammonia nitrogen and its recovery by the chemical absorption of ammonia on phosphoric acid, resulting in a product with potential application as agricultural fertilizer, the ammonia phosphate. The leachate flows used were 9, 18, 20, and 40 L/h, and the air flows were 1800 and 3600 L/h. Calcium carbonate (standard grade), commercial hydrated lime (CHL), and sodium hydroxide (standard grade) were used for pH adjustments. To the ammonia recovery, three flasks were used with 2.5 L of a phosphoric acid solution of 0.12 and 0.24 mol/L. The air stripping tower removed an average of 98% of ammoniacal nitrogen, with an operating time of 4 to 9 days. The volume of air consumed to remove 1 g of ammoniacal nitrogen varied from 9, 91, and 21.6 m³. The ammonia recovery was about 92% using a phosphoric acid solution, producing the ammonia phosphate.