Phosphate and fluoride are of commonly detected contaminants in the wastewater of fertilizer industries that produce nitro-phosphate. Chemical precipitation is the mainly responsible for remediation of TP and F-contaminated wastewater.

1. Omar Ali Omar El-Kashef *, Hamdy A. Hassan, Ayman S.A. Eldourghamy, Ibrahim E. Mousa
Department of environmental biotechnology, University of Sadat city, Menoufia, Egypt.
*: presenter, eagleegypt@yahoo.com
ABSTRACT
Phosphate and fluoride are of commonly detected contaminants in the wastewater of fertilizer industries that produce nitro-phosphate. Chemical
precipitation is the mainly responsible for remediation of TP and F-contaminated wastewater. Knowledge about the concentration of alkali and pH of TP
and F removal rate is still very limited. Chemical reactions were constructed to investigate the stability of precipitates resulted from Ca3(PO4)2 and CaF2
complexes removal%. Precipitation rate for phosphate was more on pH and added alkali that Fluoride at 0.05 degree at pH 8.5. The introduction of small
amounts of CaCl2 increases these rates insignificantly decrease, resulting in a insolubility of the precipitation rates through the reaction ph. Fluoride
removal rates measured down the pH become more slight alkali. The removal% of real wastewater based on measurements of TDS, PO4 and F which the
main pollutants result in the Evergrow Company treated with 25 ppm of CaCl2. The results of treatment with real water that have high salts content with
heavily contamination with phosphate and fluoride are summarized as 82.0%, 97.1%, and 78.18% for TDS, PO4 and F, respectively. That is complying with
Egyptian law Act 44/2000.
Background
Phosphate and fluoride are of commonly detected
contaminants in the wastewater of fertilizer industries
that produce nitro-phosphate. Chemical precipitation
is the mainly responsible for remediation of TP and F-
contaminated wastewater. Knowledge about the
concentration of alkali and pH of TP and F removal rate
is still very limited. Chemical reactions were
constructed to investigate the stability of precipitates
resulted from Ca3(PO4)2 and CaF2. Phosphates are
necessary elements in the fertilizers used to supply
food and feed human beings , the demand for
phosphate increases as the world population
increases. It is important to note that healthy animals
and human beings also require adequate amounts of
phosphorus in their food for normal metabolic
processes (FAO, 1984, 1995).
Methods
The present study has been undertaken to determine the physicochemical characters of the specific fertilizer activities Evergrow company, Egypt. Various
wastewater samples were taken from selected proposed treatment compact units for an integrated comparative studies to evaluate their overall
performance to provide treated water with acceptable quality based on the Egyptian guidelines (6). Four different sites of production technologies were
tested for integrated comparative study with the details of the treatment. The evaluation tools of the comparative studies include physical, chemical and
metal parameters pertaining potential significance to receiving water quality characterization. Details of various methods adopted for physical, chemical,
and heavy metals analyses are followed the APHA, (2005) 7.
Figure 2. Characterization of industrial wastewater treatment plant
in average and SD through different parameters (pH, phosphate,
and total suspended solids) through studying period.
Conclusion
Conclusions from this study were summary with Increases in pollutants loading adversely did not impact on the precipitation capacity of the alkali. The decline
in precipitation was remarkably after pH 7.4 for phosphate fertilizer wastewater. The application of pH and alkali for precipitation technologies confirmed that
increases in pollutants promoted depth-wise precipitation of phosphate and fluoride within chemical reaction, thereby chemical validating previous empirical
modeling hypotheses. The use of a pH dependent alkali technique underestimated the development of CaCl2 or Ca(OH)2 within the reaction
Figure 5. : Characterization of TSS collected sample from influent and
effluent of industrial treatment plant (Evergrow) and Egyptian law
(44/2000) from studying period March 2014 to Feb .
References
1) FAO, 1995. Integrated plant nutrition systems. In: Dudal, R., Roy, R.N.
(Eds.), FAO Fertilizer and Plant Nutrition Bulletin No. 12. FAO, Rome.
2) FAO, 1984. Fertilizer and plant nutrition guide. In: FAO Fertilizer and Plant
Nutrition Bulletin No. 9. FAO, Rome.
3) European Fertilizers Manufacturers’ Association, EFMA, (2000) Best
Available Techniques for Pollution Prevention and Control in the European
Fertilizer Industry-Booklet No. 7 of 8: Production of NPK Fertilizers by the
Nitrophosphate Route, , Brussels.
4) IAEA, 2004. International Labour Office, Occupational Radiation Protection
in the Mining and Processing of Raw Materials. IAEA Safety Standards
Series No.RS-G-1.6, IAEA, Vienna.
5) Ahmed, M., Hasan, C.K., Rahman, H., Hossain, M.A., Uddin, S.A., 2015.
Prospects of using wastewater as a resource-nutrient recovery and energy
generation. Am. J. Environ. Sci. 11 (2), 99
6) Ashraf, M., Iqbal Zafar, Z., Ansari, T., 2005. Selective leaching kinetics and
upgrading of low-grade calcareous phosphate rock in succinic acid.
Hydrometallurgy 80,286–292,
7) APHA (2005) Standard Methods for the Examination of Water and
Wastewater. 21st Edition, American Public Health Association/American
Water Works Association/Water Environment Federation, Washington DC.
Figure (1) Flow diagram of different proposed
treatment steps.
Results
Our study, concern about removal
efficiency of all insoluble component and
decreasing the wastewater of fertilizer
industries. The aim of this work was to
optimize the removal efficiency of
phosphate and fluoride loads to meet
the needs of a regulations by changing
chemical forms. Studying the factors
affecting treatment though many
indictors was investigated. A comparison
between different bases on the basis of
increasing pH and the effluent quality
was run under different operation
indicators including different doses of
Calcium chloride and Calcium hydroxide.
“Chemical and microbial treatment of toxic
wastes from fertilizers industry”
Figure 4. Characterization of pH collected from influent and effluent
of industrial treatment plant (Evargrow) and Egyptian law
(44/2000) from studying period March 2014 to Feb 2016.
Table.1 Analysis of industrial wastewaters produced from
different site of specific fertilizers company.
Figure 3. Effect of treatment with different
concentration of CaCl2 for simulated water contains 25
ppm of phosphate and pH 8.
Parameters Unite
Value
Average ± SD*
Minimum Maximum
General
indicators
pH (site 1) 8.30±0.29 7.04 9.29
pH (site 3-1) 6.33±1.70 1.71 11.7
pH (site 3-2) 7.37±0.88 2.86 11.00
pH (site 4) 6.59±2.00 1.46 11.94
TDS (site 1) mg/l 565.7±149.7 375 1912
TDS (site 4) mg/l 6051±4983 285 29370
Anions
Phosphate (PO4) mg/l 148.3±83.1 103 211
Fluoride (Fl) mg/l 17.25±5.6 12 25
Total alkalinity mg/l 377±486 33 4724
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 39 41 43 45 47 49 51 53 55 57 59 61 63 65 67 69 71 73 75 77 79 81 83 85 87 89 91
pH characterization
pH pH pH pH
0.1
1
10
100
1000
10000
Influent Effluent Influent Effluent Influent Effluent
pH PO4 T.S.S