Optimalisation of magnesium ammonium phosphate precipitation and its applicability to the removal of ammonium.

Among the physico-chemical abatement technologies, mainly acid scrubbers have been used to control NH3-emission. The disadvantage of this technique is that it yields waste water, highly concentrated in ammonia. In this report, the applicability of the magnesium ammonium phosphate (MAP) process to regenerate the liquid phase, produced by scrubbing NH3-loaded waste gases, was investigated. In the MAP process, ammonium is precipitated as magnesium ammonium phosphate, which can be used as a slow release fertilizer. The influence of a number of parameters, e.g. pH, kinetics, molar ratio NH(+)4/Mg2+/PO(3-)4 on the efficiency of the formation of MAP and on the ammonium removal efficiency was investigated. In this way, optimal conditions were determined for the precipitation reaction. Next to this, interference caused by other precipitation reactions was studied. At aqueous NH(+)4-concentrations of about 600 mg l(-1), ammonium removal efficiencies of 97% could be obtained at a molar ratio NH(+)4/Mg2+/PO(3-)4 of 1/1.5/1.5. To obtain this result, the pH was continuously adjusted to a value of 9 during the reaction. According to this study, it is obvious that the MAP-precipitation technology offers opportunities for ammonium removal from scrubbing liquids. The practical applicability of the MAP-process in waste gas treatment systems, however, should be the subject for further investigations.