Comparisons Study of Phosphate Removal in Unaerated and Aerated High Calcium Steel Slag Filter System of Different pH Feed

Excess phosphorus in water body will lead to eutrophication. This study investigated the phosphate removal efficiencies of unaerated and aerated filter systems using high composition of Calcium (Ca) steel slag as the filter media at different pH values of the wastewater influents. Lab-scale filters were developed using 25 mg/L synthetic wastewater and weekly sampling was done to monitor the phosphate removal efficiencies together with the concentration of metals (Calcium (Ca) and Magnesium (Mg). The results show that both unaerated and aerated systems have excellent phosphate removal efficiency at all acidic, neutral and alkaline pH feed, though unaerated systems removed slightly better compared to aerated systems; 76-98% and 69-97% respectively. The dominant phosphate removal mechanism for aerated systems was adsorption, meanwhilefor unaerated systems; both adsorption and precipitation for acidic and neutral pH, whileprecipitation was more dominant at basic pH. The performance of unaerated systems are slightly better compared to aerated systems, however, aerated systems are recommended to be applied when simultaneous removal of nutrients (phosphorus and nitrogen) are concerned.