Phosphorus Removal and Methylene Blue Adsorption by Porous Calcium Silicate Hydrate.

Abstract: Nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) should be removed and recycled from wastewater in order to reduce the nutrient load to recipient waters, avoiding contamination of groundwater and conserve resources. There is a need to pay more attention to phosphorus (P) removal and recycling from wastewater due to limited availability of phosphorus recourses. For such purpose reactive filter media can be used to remove nutrient from wastewater as a sustainable technology. The present study was aimed to evaluate calcium silicate hydrate crystallization in Absol as a reactive filter media for removal and recycle of phosphorus from household wastewater and assess physical and chemical characteristics of Absol. A study of the color removing capacity of Absol was also performed. Several batch experiments were done for comparing absorption mechanism. Collected data were applied to Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models to study type of adsorption isotherms and pseudofirst- order and second order models were run for study of adsorption kinetics. The experiment demonstrated a very high P and Methylene Blue (MB) sorption capacity. The amount of adsorbed P and MB vary with initial solution concentrations, contact time, and adsorbent dosage. Both equilibrium data (P, MB) were fitted very well in the Langmuir isotherm equation, confirming the monolayer physical sorption and adsorption kinetic followed by the pseudo-second order kinetic model. It is concluded that Absol can have potential to be use for the removal of P, textile dye contaminants and probably also pharmaceuticals present in wastewater.