Bulacio Fischer Pedro Tomas, Di Trapani Daniele, Laudicina Vito Armando, Mineo Antonio, Muscarella Sofia Maria, Mannina Giorgio
Department of Agricultural, Food and Forest Sciences, University of Palermo, Viale delle Scienze ed. 4, 90128, Palermo, Italy.
Engineering Department, University of Palermo, Viale delle Scienze ed. 8, 90128, Palermo, Italy.
J Environ Manage. 2025 Feb;375:124241. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2025.124241. Epub 2025 Feb 3.
Water scarcity and mineral fertilizer depletion are becoming recognised environmental challenges worldwide. Treated wastewater (TWW) could be a potential resource for reusing water and nutrients, such as nitrogen (N), for fertilizers. This study explores the possibility of adopting columns filled with zeolite to recover ammonium (NH) from real TWW. Specifically, this study aimed to evaluate zeolite's adsorption capacity with different particle sizes arranged in columns and various flow rates to determine the most efficient way of NH adsorption from a real wastewater treatment plant's effluent. The same zeolite with two different size diameters (0.5-1.0 mm and 2.0-5.0 mm) was tested using three different flow rates (1.2, 1.6 and 2.4 L h) to evaluate their NH adsorption capacity. After the adsorption test, a desorption trial assessed the zeolite's desorption ability. The results showed that the highest flow rate increased the adsorption capacity of both zeolites by about 29% more than the lowest flow rate. Moreover, the 0.5-1.0 mm zeolite adsorbed approximately 60 mg more NH than the 2.0-5.0 mm zeolite, highlighting the influence of particle size on adsorption capacity. Furthermore, the zeolite was characterised by a rapid NH release since 44-78% of the adsorbed NH was released in the first 30 min. The desorption test with the lowest flow rate achieved the highest amount of desorbed NH, up to 123-148% more than the higher flow rates. Results have shown that due to its adsorption capacity, zeolite can be used to recover NH from treated wastewater (TWW) and potentially recycle resources in the agriculture field, contributing to the circular economy.
水资源短缺和矿物肥料枯竭正成为全球公认的环境挑战。经过处理的废水（TWW）可能是一种潜在的水资源和养分再利用资源，例如用于肥料的氮（N）。本研究探讨了采用填充沸石的柱体从实际TWW中回收铵（NH）的可能性。具体而言，本研究旨在评估不同粒径的沸石在柱体中的吸附容量以及不同流速，以确定从实际污水处理厂流出物中吸附NH的最有效方法。使用三种不同流速（1.2、1.6和2.4 L/h）对两种不同粒径（0.5 - 1.0毫米和2.0 - 5.0毫米）的同一种沸石进行测试，以评估其NH吸附容量。吸附试验后，进行解吸试验以评估沸石的解吸能力。结果表明，最高流速使两种沸石的吸附容量比最低流速提高了约29%。此外，0.5 - 1.0毫米的沸石比2.0 - 5.0毫米的沸石多吸附约60毫克NH，突出了粒径对吸附容量的影响。此外，沸石的特点是NH快速释放，因为在最初30分钟内释放了44 - 78%的吸附NH。最低流速的解吸试验实现了最高的NH解吸量，比更高流速的解吸量多123 - 148%。结果表明，由于其吸附能力，沸石可用于从处理后的废水中回收NH，并有可能在农业领域实现资源循环利用，为循环经济做出贡献。
