Morphology and Elemental Composition of Product Obtained from Struvite Fluidized Bed Reactor

Phosphorus scarcity is no longer a distant future, therefore the idea of phosphoru recovery is currently widely adopted and developed. Technologies based on the struvite precipitation are consider to address the future P challenges in the optimum way. This paper presents the results of the pilot scale implementation of fluidized bed reactor for struvite precipitation at the wastewater treatment plant. The test was carried out to assess the applicability of the technology in terms of robustness and final product quality, operating at low pH level (7,5-7,8). Obtained struvite pellets were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with an energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS). The presence of foreign ions and particulate impurities in the feed source, affected the uniform growth of the crystal structure, resulting in highly porous structure of the pellets. Despite the varying physiochemical conditions, typical for wastewater, obtained pellets were determined with 95% struvite purity.