Alternative adsorbent materials used to remove phosphates from water

Abstract

The aim of the study was to develop alternative adsorbent materials based on pyritic ash, with high iron content, in order to retain phosphates from wastewater. Experimental studies of phosphate removal efficiency have shown that the phosphates removal from water using pyritic ash adsorbent materials is strongly influenced by some parameters such as: contact time, stirring speed, amount of adsorbent material or iron content. An increase of phosphate removal efficiency up to 53% could be observed for iron-rich adsorbent materials (PA1) by increasing the contact time to 6 hours and the stirring speed to 100 rpm. An increase of phosphate removal efficiency was also observed by increasing the amount of adsorbent material from 0.1 g to 0.5 g for all three adsorbent materials studied (PA1, PA2, PA3). The best efficiency was shown for PA1 (53.13%), while PA3 showed the lowest efficiency (19.74%).