PRESENT STATE OF PHOSPHORUS RECOVERY FROM WASTEWATER TREATMENT

As the phosphorus resource is expected to be exhaustible globally, ensuring phosphorus is strongly required. Especially in Japan, there is no domestic production and almost all phosphorus is imported from abroad. Therefore phosphorus recovery from wastewater treatment system where a large amount of phosphorus flows in high concentration is quite important. In this report, characteristics of phosphorus recovery technologies under investigation or in practice are summarized focusing on recovering from wastewater or returned water, sewage sludge, sewage sludge ash, and so on. For the future, three prospects are required as follows: 1. development of whole wastewater treatment system with the application of phosphorus recovery technologies considering other processes, 2. advancement and effective development of technologies based on clarification of phosphorus recovery mechanisms, 3. demand survey and recovered material preparation for utilization of recovered phosphorus as fertilizer, and exploitation of phosphorus recycle route such as substitute of phosphorus rock, or industrial use.