Evaluation of alum-based water treatment residuals used to adsorb reactive phosphorus

Excess reactive phosphorus(PO4)in waterways can lead to eutrophication.A low-cost approach to reducing PO4 levels in surface water was evaluated using the alum-based water treatment residual(Al-WTR)or Al-WTR augmented with powdered activated carbon(PAC-WTR).Batch adsorption-desorption and continuous flow column experiments were performed to assess the specific adsorption capacities under various concentration and flow conditions.Both Al-WTR and PAC-WTR exhibited the ability to adsorb PO4.The overall,cumulative sorbed amount after a 28-d desorption step for Al-WTR was 33.93 mg/kg,significantly greater than the PAC-WTR value of 24.95 mg/kg(p<0.05).The continuous flow column experiments showed a theoretical PO4 uptake of 9.00 mg/g for Al-WTR and 7.14 mg/g for PAC-WTR over 720 h.When surface water was used,the Al-WTR and PAC-WTR columns removed 67.4%and 62.1%of the PO4,respectively.These results indicated that Al-WTR was more effective for in-field evaluation.