TY - JOUR
T1 - The effect of anode degradation on energy demand and production efficiency of electrochemically precipitated struvite
AU - Kékedy-Nagy, László
AU - Abolhassani, Mojtaba
AU - Sultana, Ruhi
AU - Anari, Zahra
AU - Brye, Kristofor R.
AU - Pollet, Bruno G.
AU - Greenlee, Lauren F.
N1 - Funding Information:
LKN, RS, KRB, and LFG acknowledge the National Science Foundation (NSF) for this work's financial support through the INFEWS/T3 Award #1739473 and the University of Arkansas Institute for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology characterization facility for support in surface and material characterization. Cheri Villines with the Fayetteville Agricultural Diagnostic Lab is also gratefully acknowledged for her assistance with the chemical analyses of the struvite materials.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.
PY - 2022/2
Y1 - 2022/2
N2 - Abstract: The electrochemical recovery of phosphorus (P) from wastewater in the form of struvite (MgNH4PO4⋅6H2O) has been shown as a viable replacement for industrial phosphate-based fertilizers. Electrochemical struvite precipitation is dependent upon the oxidation of a magnesium (Mg) anode, and the corrosion process creates a dynamically changing anode surface with likely impacts on reactor performance. In this work, a scaled-up electrochemical reactor (16 L) was designed to study reactor performance over time as anode degradation caused changes to struvite production and energy demand. A concentrated synthetic wastewater was used and electrochemical precipitation was monitored from batch to batch across six separate batch reactor experiments. Generally, the scaled-up electrochemical reactor improved struvite recovery (40–54%) over our previously reported lab-scale reactor (38%); however, the production exponentially decreased with the number of batch experiments from ~ 320 to ~ 210 g/batch, while the consumed energy exponentially increased from 0.9 to 1.6 kWh/batch due to severe degradation of the Mg anode. FTIR, XRD, SEM, XPS, and chemical analyses confirmed a total production of ~ 1.6 kg of high-quality struvite with an energy input of 4.6 kwh kg−1. Graphic abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.].
AB - Abstract: The electrochemical recovery of phosphorus (P) from wastewater in the form of struvite (MgNH4PO4⋅6H2O) has been shown as a viable replacement for industrial phosphate-based fertilizers. Electrochemical struvite precipitation is dependent upon the oxidation of a magnesium (Mg) anode, and the corrosion process creates a dynamically changing anode surface with likely impacts on reactor performance. In this work, a scaled-up electrochemical reactor (16 L) was designed to study reactor performance over time as anode degradation caused changes to struvite production and energy demand. A concentrated synthetic wastewater was used and electrochemical precipitation was monitored from batch to batch across six separate batch reactor experiments. Generally, the scaled-up electrochemical reactor improved struvite recovery (40–54%) over our previously reported lab-scale reactor (38%); however, the production exponentially decreased with the number of batch experiments from ~ 320 to ~ 210 g/batch, while the consumed energy exponentially increased from 0.9 to 1.6 kWh/batch due to severe degradation of the Mg anode. FTIR, XRD, SEM, XPS, and chemical analyses confirmed a total production of ~ 1.6 kg of high-quality struvite with an energy input of 4.6 kwh kg−1. Graphic abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.].
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U2 - 10.1007/s10800-021-01637-y
DO - 10.1007/s10800-021-01637-y
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85116834885
VL - 52
SP - 205
EP - 215
JO - Journal of Applied Electrochemistry
JF - Journal of Applied Electrochemistry
SN - 0021-891X
IS - 2
ER -