Study on the adsorption of nitrogen and phosphorus from biogas slurry by NaCl-modified zeolite

A NaCl-modified zeolite was used to simultaneously remove nitrogen and phosphate from biogas slurry. The effect of pH, contact time and dosage of absorbants on the removal efficiency of nitrogen and phosphate were studied. The results showed that the highest removal efficiency of NH(4)(+)-N (92.13%) and PO(4)(3−)-P (90.3%) were achieved at pH 8. While the zeolite doses ranged from 0.5 to 5 g/100 ml, NH(4)(+)-N and PO(4)(3−)-P removal efficiencies ranged from 5.19% to 94.94% and 72.16% to 91.63% respectively. The adsorption isotherms of N and P removal with NaCl-modified zeolite were well described by Langmuir models, suggesting the homogeneous sorption mechanisms. While through intra-particle diffusion model to analyze the influence of contact time, it showed that the adsorption process of NH(4)(+)-N and PO(4)(3−)-P followed the second step of intra-particle diffusion model. The surface diffusion adsorption step was very fast which was finished in a short time.