Recovery of magnesium from RO concentrate for struvite production

Title

Recovery of magnesium from RO concentrate for struvite production

 Author

Mehta, Divvay (TU Delft Civil Engineering & Geosciences; TU Delft Water Management; TU Delft Sanitary Engineering)

Contributor

van der Hoek, J.P. (mentor) ORCID 0000-0002-0674-388X
Heijman, Sebastiaan (graduation committee) ORCID 0000-0003-2582-3030
Lindeboom, R.E.F. (graduation committee) ORCID 0000-0002-0516-929X
Tee, Synco (graduation committee)

Degree granting institution

Delft University of Technology

 Programme

Civil Engineering | Environmental Engineering

 Date

2022-12-14

 Abstract

Magnesium is one of the most critical natural resources and 96% of magnesium used in Europe is imported. The present study investigated possible ways of implementing circularity in the magnesium cycle within the borders of Waternet, a water utility in the Netherlands. The wastewater treatment plant at Amsterdam-West produces struvite from anaerobic digestate. The production of struvite requires 4400 tons of 32% MgCl2 annually. At the same time, a reverse osmosis (R.O.) process treating brackish groundwater for drinking water production produces a concentrate rich in magnesium ions. This R.O. concentrate, after being treated by aeration and filtration to remove iron and ammonium, is considered for use in the wastewater struvite recovery process. Technologies for recovering magnesium from this R.O. concentrate were investigated in this study. After analyzing the constraints of the magnesium dosing system, the struvite reactor, and the R.O. concentrate composition, two technologies were selected for the study of Mg2+ recovery: Nano-filtration (N.F.) and Ion exchange. The present study investigated both these processes via software simulations and laboratory experiments. The study revealed that while the N.F. process is not viable, the cation exchange using a weak chelating resin AmberLite IRC747 in Na+ form (regeneration with H2SO4 and NaOH) is possible when the resin is saturated with divalent cations. The regenerant stream (produced via acid regeneration) is a sodium-free stream having gypsum precipitates. After gypsum separation, the process created an Mg2+ dose with a concentration of 4.45 g/l. This study developed a 1 step process for extracting Mg2+ from RO concentrate.

 Subject

Magnesium
Struvite
Resource recovery
RO concentrate
Ion Exchange

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http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:bff2c00f-3a78-440b-a419-e202edb68dfd

 Part of collection

Student theses

 Document type

master thesis

 Rights

© 2022 Divvay Mehta
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