Removal of phosphorus from secondary effluents using infiltration–percolation process

• Main Authors: Mahmoud Bali, Moncef Gueddari
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: SpringerOpen 2019-03-01
• Series: Applied Water Science
• Subjects: Infiltration–percolation; Phosphorus removal; Sand filters; Wastewater; Mechanisms
• Online Access: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13201-019-0945-5

Abstract Intermittent infiltration–percolation is an extensively used treatment process which is capable of oxidizing and decontaminating wastewater. The main purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficiency of this treatment process regarding particularly the removal of phosphorus from urban wastewater effluents. The phosphorus removal mechanisms that may occur in sand filters were investigated. Results confirmed that infiltration–percolation is performed as an advanced treatment technique for suspended solids, organic matter and nitrogen. However, it is less efficient concerning the reduction of orthophosphate. The experimental study has shown the influence of the filter depth, the hydraulic load and its fractionation on phosphorus removal. Analyses of the percolating water sampled at 50, 100 and 150 cm bed depths showed that efficiency of phosphorus removal increased significantly with the depth of the filtering medium. Results indicated that providing more and smaller sequences improves the efficiency of orthophosphate retention. During the experimentation period, phosphorus removal rates do not seem to be affected by the variation of temperature. The scatter plots and the Pearson’s correlation coefficient indicate that there is no apparent linear pattern between orthophosphate retention rates and temperature. This finding confirms that phosphorus removal is not attributed to microbial uptake but it is mainly governed by physical–chemical mechanisms such as adsorption and precipitation.