Electrochemical Recovery of Phosphorus from Simulated and Real Wastewater: Effect of Investigational Conditions on the Process Efficiency

The development of recovery processes has become essential in recent years as a strategy to minimize environmental pollution while boosting circular economy and sustainable development. Due to the exponential growth in agricultural production and the increased pollution of waterbodies, the production of fertilizers from recovered phosphorus has become an alternative to phosphate rock-based production. In this work, the effect of different operational parameters in the efficiency of the electrochemical recovery of phosphorus, from organic and inorganic sources, was investigated. Among the studied variables, the most significant was the electrode material utilized in the system. The use of magnesium sacrificial electrodes, as AZ31 alloys, led to phosphorus removal from solution of above 90%, allowing the recovery of both orthophosphates and organic phosphorus (glyphosate) as struvite, brucite, and other amorphous compounds. Since there is a lack in the literature about the use of magnesium electrodes in real wastewater electrochemical treatment, system efficiency was also evaluated using a sanitary landfill leachate, reaching 96% of phosphorus recovery. The specific energy consumption and faradaic efficiency of the phosphorus recovery process were also assessed.