Phosphorus Removal and Recovery Through Novel Adsorption Technology

Due to fertilizers and animal waste in agriculture, phosphorus run off is becoming a huge dilemma in lakes, rivers, and watersheds everywhere. The unnatural amount of Phosphorus being pumped into our bodies of water is causing increased algae growth which among other things, blocks sunlight from reaching other life. When algae die, bacteria break them down using dissolved oxygen in the water, which causes the other aquatic life who depend on the oxygen to die out. To prevent this issue a filtration device has been made that would filter out phosphorous material from storm water. By reducing the phosphorus coming from farmlands, algae blooms as well as other issues stemmed from phosphorus filled waters can be curtailed. The focus of this project is on the recovery of phosphorus from a saturated sorbent through the addition of compound and the act of sonication. Two methods were developed to desorb phosphorus from the sorbent and are being evaluated and compared. The two methods are chemically based, one using NaOH and another KCl solution, followed by sonication. Experiments are being performed in triplicates. Amount of phosphorus recovered from both methods will be compared so the most efficient method can be determined