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. 2022 Jun;13(6):14751-14769.
doi: 10.1080/21655979.2022.2109507.

Waste-derived volatile fatty acid production and ammonium removal from it by ion exchange process with natural zeolite

Tugba Sapmaz  1   2 , Amir Mahboubi  2 , Mustafa N Taher  1 , Bilsen Beler-Baykal  1 , Ahmet Karagunduz  3 , Mohammad J Taherzadeh  2 , Derya Y Koseoglu-Imer  1
Affiliations

Waste-derived volatile fatty acid production and ammonium removal from it by ion exchange process with natural zeolite

Tugba Sapmaz et al. Bioengineered. 2022 Jun.

Abstract

Volatile fatty acids (VFAs) produced during anaerobic digestion (AD) of organic waste are a promising alternative carbon source for various biological processes; however, their applications are limited due to the presence of impurities such as ammonium (NH4+). This study investigates the potential for removal of ammonium using a naturally occurring zeolite (clinoptilolite) from chicken manure (CKM) derived VFA effluent recovered from an anaerobic membrane bioreactor (MBR). Experiments were conducted for both synthetic and actual VFA (AD-VFA) solutions, and the effects of different parameters were investigated with batch and continuous studies. It was observed that the Langmuir-type isotherm provided the best fit to the equilibrium data in the isotherm investigations carried out with the AD-VFA solution. The maximum adsorption capacity (qm) was found as 15.7 mg NH4+/g clinoptilolite. The effect of some operational parameters on process performance such as pH, initial NH4+ loading and potassium ion (K+) concentration was investigated. The pH had a negligible effect on ammonium removal for a pH range of 3-7, while the removal efficiency of ammonium decreased with the increase of initial NH4+ loading and K+ concentration. At the optimum conditions determined in batch experiments, the ammonium removal from synthetic and AD-VFA solutions were compared and average ammonium removal efficiencies of 93 and 94% were found in 12 h equilibrium time for synthetic and AD-VFA solutions, respectively. Overall findings indicated that clinoptilolite has excellent potential for ion exchange when combined with biological processes such as acidogenic fermentation of VFAs to purify the solution from high-ammonium content.

Keywords: Ammonium removal; anaerobic immersed membrane bioreactors; clinoptilolite; ion exchange; resource recovery; volatile fatty acids; waste valorization.

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Conflict of interest statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Figures

None
Graphical abstract
Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Schematic overview of MBR setup for AD-VFA production and fixed bed batch column setup for ammonium removal.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Equilibrium time profile with different initial adsorbate concentrations.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
(a) Isotherm curve and (b) Langmuir and (c) Freundlich isotherm models of ammonium with clinoptilolite for AD-VFA solution.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Comparison between ion exchange isotherms of pure NH4+ solution, and AD-VFA with qm values from Langmuir. The figure contains results from experiments that were done in a previous study done by Allar [41].
Figure 5.
Figure 5.
Effect of initial loading on ammonium removal with ion exchange from sVFA solution.
Figure 6.
Figure 6.
Effect of pH on ammonium removal with ion exchange from sVFA solution.
Figure 7.
Figure 7.
Effect of K+ ion on ammonium removal with ion exchange from sVFA solution.
Figure 8.
Figure 8.
Ammonium removal of clinoptilolite in sVFA and AD-VFA solutions (pH 6.8).
Figure 9.
Figure 9.
VFA changes on (a) sVFA and (b) waste derived AD-VFA solution.
Figure 10.
Figure 10.
Ammonium breakthrough curves in different concentrations of sVFA solution.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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