Acidification and recovery of phosphorus from digested and non-digested sludge

Acidification was used to dissolve phosphorus from digested and non-digested sludge from five wastewater treatment plants in order to make phosphorus accessible for subsequent recovery. More phosphorus was dissolved from digested sludge (up to 80%), with respect to non-digested sludge (∼25%) and the highest release was observed at pH 2. The acid consumption for digested sludge was higher than for non-digested sludge due to the presence of the bicarbonate buffer system, thus CO2 stripping increased the acid consumption. In all the experiments, the sludge was exposed to acid for 1 h. For the five tested sludge types, 60-100 mmol o-P was released per added mol H2SO4. It was mainly iron and calcium compounds that accounts for the phosphorus release at low pH. The release of heavy metals was in general low (<30%) for all the wastewater treatment plant, as Zn, Cd and Ni showed the most critical release after acidification of non-digested sludge.