Phosphorus removal by lime-natural mineral dissolved solutions

In previous studies, solely ferric (Fe3+) and calcium (Ca2+) ions were commonly used for removal of PO4-P (considered as T-P in this study) in wastewater via chemical precipitation. Herein, the removal of total phosphorus (T-P) in wastewater was performed using various mineral and lime dissolved solutions. The dissolution kinetics of different minerals (feldspar, olivine, elvan, illite, sericite, and zeolite) and lime was compared and used their solutions for T-P removal of real wastewater. The highest T-P removal (almost 90%) was obtained by the lime dissolved solution and followed by zeolite, illite, feldspar, and others. We observed a significant co-relationship (R of 0.96) between the amount of initial Ca2+ and T-P removal. This was induced by formation of hydroxyapatite-like mineral via Ca-P precipitation reaction at high pH solution. Furthermore, additional removal of suspended solid (SS) and chemical oxygen demand (COD) was achieved by only lime dissolved solution. Finally, the lime-feldspar dissolved solutions were prepared at different ratios (10-50%), which showed a successive T-P removal up to two times by samples of 40 and 50%.