Recovering ammonia from municipal wastewater by flow-electrode capacitive deionization

Abstract This work investigated ammonia pre-concentration from low-strength municipal wastewater by flow-electrode capacitive deionization (FCDI) cell. A variety of operating conditions, including applied voltage, flow rate, graphite powder dosage, pH value and initial ammonia concentration, were investigated systematically. The results indicated that removal efficiency was greatly improved by increasing the working voltage (from 0.2 V to 1.2 V) and flow rate (from 5.00 to 7.75 mL/min), adding 1.5 wt% graphite powders and decreasing pH to 4. The maximum ammonia removal efficiency (87.00 ± 0.79%) was obtained with adsorption capacity of 1.43 ± 0.01 mg NH4Cl/g. Based on these optimum operation conditions, enrichment experiments were conducted with the desired concentration multiple times of 20 and an initial ammonia concentration of 20 mg N/L, which led to a final ammonia concentration of 322.06 mg N/L in the aqueous phase of flow electrodes. Additionally, valence, initial concentration, hydrate radius and diffusion efficiency also notably affected the alternative electro-performance of the FCDI cell because of co-existing cations. The study provides new insights into the emerging FCDI technology, which is expected to improve the methods of performing cost-effective ammonia removal and pre-concentration from low-strength municipal wastewater with moderate ion selectivity and wide ranging influent quality.

[1]  Hong Wang,et al.  Capacitive deionization of a RO brackish water by AC/graphene composite electrodes. , 2018, Chemosphere.

[2]  Di He,et al.  Capacitive Membrane Stripping for Ammonia Recovery (CapAmm) from Dilute Wastewaters , 2018 .

[3]  Sungil Jeon,et al.  Ion storage and energy recovery of a flow-electrode capacitive deionization process , 2014 .

[4]  P. M. Biesheuvel,et al.  Fluidized bed electrodes with high carbon loading for water desalination by capacitive deionization , 2016 .

[5]  E. R. Nightingale,et al.  PHENOMENOLOGICAL THEORY OF ION SOLVATION. EFFECTIVE RADII OF HYDRATED IONS , 1959 .

[6]  Wangwang Tang,et al.  Development of Redox-Active Flow Electrodes for High-Performance Capacitive Deionization. , 2016, Environmental science & technology.

[7]  Moon Hee Han,et al.  Surface-modified spherical activated carbon for high carbon loading and its desalting performance in flow-electrode capacitive deionization , 2016 .

[8]  Volker Presser,et al.  Capacitive deionization in organic solutions: case study using propylene carbonate , 2016 .

[9]  Irini Angelidaki,et al.  Recovery of ammonia and sulfate from waste streams and bioenergy production via bipolar bioelectrodialysis. , 2015, Water research.

[10]  Linda Zou,et al.  A study of the capacitive deionisation performance under various operational conditions. , 2012, Journal of hazardous materials.

[11]  Peng Liang,et al.  Enhanced desalination performance of membrane capacitive deionization cells by packing the flow chamber with granular activated carbon. , 2015, Water research.

[12]  Volker Presser,et al.  Carbon flow electrodes for continuous operation of capacitive deionization and capacitive mixing energy generation , 2014 .

[13]  Sungil Jeon,et al.  Analysis of the desalting performance of flow-electrode capacitive deionization under short-circuited closed cycle operation , 2017 .

[14]  Peng Liang,et al.  Optimized desalination performance of high voltage flow-electrode capacitive deionization by adding carbon black in flow-electrode , 2017 .

[15]  V. Niculescu,et al.  THE USE OF ANAEROBIC MEMBRANE BIOREACTOR AND REVERSE OSMOSIS SYSTEM FOR WASTEWATER TREATMENT , 2017 .

[16]  P. Długołęcki,et al.  Energy recovery in membrane capacitive deionization. , 2013, Environmental science & technology.

[17]  Xia Huang,et al.  Capacitive deionization for nutrient recovery from wastewater with disinfection capability , 2018 .

[18]  Nidal Hilal,et al.  Application of Capacitive Deionisation in water desalination: A review , 2014 .

[19]  A. Horvath,et al.  Life-Cycle Cost and Environmental Assessment of Decentralized Nitrogen Recovery Using Ion Exchange from Source-Separated Urine through Spatial Modeling. , 2017, Environmental science & technology.

[20]  Peng Liang,et al.  Nitrogen recovery from low-strength wastewater by combined membrane capacitive deionization (MCDI) and ion exchange (IE) process , 2017 .

[21]  Qingliang Zhao,et al.  Co-removal of phosphorus and nitrogen with commercial 201 × 7 anion exchange resin during tertiary treatment of WWTP effluent and phosphate recovery , 2015 .

[22]  P. Webley,et al.  A comparison of multicomponent electrosorption in capacitive deionization and membrane capacitive deionization. , 2018, Water research.

[23]  P. M. Biesheuvel,et al.  Time-dependent ion selectivity in capacitive charging of porous electrodes. , 2012, Journal of colloid and interface science.

[24]  Kelsey B. Hatzell,et al.  Effect of oxidation of carbon material on suspension electrodes for flow electrode capacitive deionization. , 2015, Environmental science & technology.

[25]  Zhengyu Jin,et al.  Efficient sewage pre-concentration with combined coagulation microfiltration for organic matter recovery , 2016 .

[26]  Volker Presser,et al.  Water desalination via capacitive deionization : What is it and what can we expect from it? , 2015 .

[27]  Yong Liu,et al.  Ultrahigh Desalinization Performance of Asymmetric Flow-Electrode Capacitive Deionization Device with an Improved Operation Voltage of 1.8 V , 2017 .

[28]  Volker Presser,et al.  Review on the science and technology of water desalination by capacitive deionization , 2013 .

[29]  Volker Presser,et al.  Influence of pore structure and cell voltage of activated carbon cloth as a versatile electrode material for capacitive deionization , 2017 .

[30]  Yong Liu,et al.  Review on carbon-based composite materials for capacitive deionization , 2015 .

[31]  Guangming Zhang,et al.  Current state of sewage treatment in China. , 2014, Water research.

[32]  Jing Liu,et al.  Nitrogen and Phosphorus Removal from Urine by Sequential Struvite Formation and Recycling Process , 2014 .

[33]  Sungil Jeon,et al.  Stack Design and Operation for Scaling Up the Capacity of Flow-Electrode Capacitive Deionization Technology , 2016 .

[34]  Kazuo Yamamoto,et al.  Membrane fouling and long-term performance of seawater-driven forward osmosis for enrichment of nutrients in treated municipal wastewater , 2016 .

[35]  Moon Hee Han,et al.  Desalination via a new membrane capacitive deionization process utilizing flow-electrodes , 2013 .

[36]  Moon Hee Han,et al.  Plate-Shaped Graphite for Improved Performance of Flow-Electrode Capacitive Deionization , 2017 .

[37]  Jiyeon Choi,et al.  A novel three-dimensional desalination system utilizing honeycomb-shaped lattice structures for flow-electrode capacitive deionization , 2017 .

[38]  Daniel Zitomer,et al.  Ion exchange-precipitation for nutrient recovery from dilute wastewater , 2015 .

[39]  Chia-Hung Hou,et al.  A comparative study of electrosorption selectivity of ions by activated carbon electrodes in capacitive deionization , 2013 .

[40]  Zhengyu Jin,et al.  Organics and nitrogen recovery from sewage via membrane-based pre-concentration combined with ion exchange process , 2017 .

[41]  Chia-Hung Hou,et al.  Improved performance in capacitive deionization of activated carbon electrodes with a tunable mesopore and micropore ratio. , 2015 .

[42]  A. Jang,et al.  Reuse of effluent discharged from tannery wastewater treatment plants by powdered activated carbon and ultrafiltration combined reverse osmosis system , 2017 .