Self-driven phosphate enrichment by hydrogel beads for nutrient recovery

doi:10.1007/s11783-025-1925-7

Front. Environ. Sci. Eng.

2025, Vol. 19

Issue (1) : 5 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-025-1925-7

Self-driven phosphate enrichment by hydrogel beads for nutrient recovery

Zeou Dou, Yixuan Huang, Xing Xie(

)

School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA

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Abstract

The enrichment of phosphate is necessary for high-efficiency nutrient recovery from wastewater through struvite precipitation. However, the majority of current nutrient enrichment processes focus on membrane-based technologies driven by external energy input. Here, the phosphate enrichment by negatively charged Poly(sodium acrylate) hydrogel beads as the self-driven dewatering agent under different conditions was investigated. The phosphate rejection decreased as its concentration increased but retained 56.9% even in 10 mmol/L PO₄³⁻ solution, which is well beyond the phosphate concentration in typical wastewater concentrates. Phosphate was concentrated 3.6 folds with a recovery of 70% using ~1 wt% of hydrogel beads in 0.5 mmol/L phosphate solution. The effects of the pH, ionic strength of the nutrient stream, and the swelling ratio of hydrogels on the rejection of phosphate were investigated. In addition, the hydrogel beads removed 100% of nickel ions during the dewatering of the phosphate solution (0.5 mmol/L Ni²⁺ and 0.5 mmol/L PO₄³⁻), presenting an opportunity for simultaneous phosphate enrichment and purification during the pretreatment for nutrient recovery from wastewater. This study demonstrated that the spontaneous dewatering process utilizing ion-selective hydrogels is promising for nutrient enrichment to promote recovery efficiency.

Keywords Nutrient recovery Hydrogel Ion selectivity Phosphate Separation

Corresponding Author(s): Xing Xie

Issue Date: 29 October 2024

Cite this article:

Zeou Dou,Yixuan Huang,Xing Xie. Self-driven phosphate enrichment by hydrogel beads for nutrient recovery[J]. Front. Environ. Sci. Eng., 2025, 19(1): 5.

URL:

https://academic.hep.com.cn/fese/EN/10.1007/s11783-025-1925-7
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fese/EN/Y2025/V19/I1/5

Tab.1 Characteristics of the phosphate media

Fig.1 Swelling ratio of PSA beads in media of different concentrations of NaCl at different pH values.

Fig.2 Performance of the PSA beads on phosphate rejection. (a) Phosphate rejection and the comparison between Debye length and the mesh size of the swelling hydrogel in media containing different concentrations of phosphate (pH around 5). (b) Phosphate rejection and the comparison between Debye length and the mesh size of the swelling hydrogel under different pH (3 mmol/L phosphate). (c) Phosphate rejection and the mesh size evolution along the swelling of the PSA beads (pH around 5, 3 mmol/L phosphate, effective Debye length 11.08 nm).

Fig.3 Concentration factor and recovery rate of phosphate feed solution plotted against volume ratio for experiment with: (a) 1–5 PSA beads swelling at pH 5.2 for 3 h; (b) 1–5 PSA beads swelling at pH 8.3 for 3 h; and (c) 3–15 PSA beads swelling at pH 8.3 for 0.5 h.

Fig.4 The performance of the PSA beads over 4 cycles of experiments. (a) Swelling ratio; (b) phosphate rejection.

Fig.5 Phosphate and nickel concentrations before and after PSA bead absorption (pH = 5.5, volume ratio = 1.8). Nickel concentration is non-detectable in the residual solution. The error bar for the phosphate concentration in the residual solution shows the standard deviation of results from three independent experiments.

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