Phosphorus Removal from Domestic Sewage by Electrolysis with Aluminium Electrodes

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A laboratory experiment was performed to investigate the phosphorus removal using the activated sludge-electrolysis reactor which consisted of A$^2$/O system and aluminium electrodes as cathode and anode. In this system, the phosphorus was removed by aluminium ion, which was eluted from aluminiumelectrodes by electrolysis. In the batch experiments, when the current densities were 0.026, 0.052 and 0.08 A/dm$^2$, the phosphorus removal efficiencies for synthetic sewage were 66.4, 86.4 and 98.7% respectively. These results showed that the phosphorus removal efficiency increased with the increase of the current density. When the current values were 13, 26 and 40 mA respectively, the amounts of Al$^{3+}$ eluted from electrodes according to Faraday's law were 0.049, 0.07 and 0.12 g and Al/P mole ratio were 1.1, 2.0 and 3.41. In the continuous experiments, As hydraulic retention time(HRT) increased, COD and total nitrogen(T-N) removal efficiencies for domestic sewage increased. The average phosphorus removal rates of the activated sludge-electrolysis system were 97, 91, 80 and 80% at the HRT of 48, 24, 18 and 12 hours, respectively. Especially, the phosphorus removal rate in the activated sludge system with aluminium electrodes was higher than that in the system without aluminium electrodes.