Phosphate Recovery by Reactive Crystallization of Magnesium Ammonium Phosphate: Application to Wastewater

In this study reactive crystallization of magnesium ammonium phosphate (MAP) has been studied experimentally in a batch agitated crystallizer. Operating conditions for selective crystallization of MAP were obtained. Under these conditions, batch crystallization experiments were performed, to obtain the behavior of concentration decrease in phosphate and magnesium ions, by changing the initial Mg/P ratio. It was recognized that the concentration decrease pattern affected the properties of produced crystals. A new process for removing ammonium and phosphate ions using a crystallization process was proposed for application to wastewater from sludge treatment processes.