Effects of phosphorus recovery requirements on Swedish sludge management

Expected requirements of phosphorus recovery, restrictions on sludge disposal on landfill, and difficulties in obtaining consensus on sludge use on agricultural land has led to several development works in Sweden to change sludge management methods. Especially sludge fractionation has gained interest including following steps to recover products and separate transfer of toxic substances into a small stream. Commercial systems are offered based on technology by Cambi/KREPRO and BioCon and other companies and many other methods are under development. Iron salts are widely used in Sweden as precipitation agents for phosphorus removal and this technology has some disadvantages for phosphorus recovery compared with the use of biological phosphorus removal. The amount of chemicals needed for a KREPRO or a BioCon system was calculated for a treatment plant which has an addition of iron salt resulting in 1,900 mole Fe per tonne DS. The result was compared with the chemical consumption of recovery systems installed at plants with lower use of iron for precipitation. The chemical consumption in equivalents per tonne DS was found to be 5,000 + 6,000 * (molar ratio iron to phosphorus).