Removal of phosphorus from water using treated acid mine drainage solids and pellets made thereof

Littler, James 2012. Removal of phosphorus from water using treated acid mine drainage solids and pellets made thereof. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University. Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

This thesis presents work carried out to further the understanding of the use of waste Acid Mine Drainage (AMD) solids to remove phosphorus from wastewaters. AMD can result in serious pollution and so is often treated by the Coal Authority in the UK the resultant solids being a costly disposal issue. Currently the Water Framework Directive (WFD) is putting increased strain on technology used to remove phosphorus at WasteWater Treatment Works (WWTWs). The work presented in this thesis therefore investigates the use of a problematic waste to provide a novel solution to the issue of phosphorus removal at WWTWs. There has been previous work carried out on the use of both AMD solids and AMD-cement pellets to remove phosphorus from wastewaters. This thesis builds upon this work, firstly the phosphorus removal achieved by unpelletised materials studied in this thesis are compared to those studied by others through the comparison of adsorption isotherms. Mirroring other studies, the principal material studied in this thesis was then pelletised using Portland cement as a binder. Phosphorus removal by these pellets in batch tests was determined and optimised. Phosphorus removal was found to increase with a reduction in pellet size and an increase in test length up to the maximum length studied of three weeks. This increase in performance was attributed to the introduction of a calcium phosphate precipitation removal mechanism as a result of the use of cement as a binder for the pellets. This was highlighted through the correlation of phosphorus removal with a drop in calcium concentrations and pH values. It was concluded that the end product of this precipitation was hydroxyapatite. Continuous column tests were performed on the pellets, it was found that the pellets not directly involved in phosphorus removal were still having their reactivity leached out by passing water and so when these pellets became involved in removal, the columns quickly failed.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	Engineering
Subjects:	T Technology > TD Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Phosphorus removal; Acid mine drainage; Cement; Adsorption; Precipitory
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	30 March 2016
Last Modified:	19 Mar 2016 22:38
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/22605

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