Fertilizer Production Industry

Wastewaters from the chemical fertilizer industry mainly contain organics, alcohols, ammonia, nitrates, phosphorous, heavy metals such as cadmium, and suspended solids. The nature of effluent streams varies in terms of their constituents and complexity. The present work attempts to fill the void in the literature that mostly reports synthetic wastewater treatment studies, by evaluating effluent treatment solutions and comparison of different methods for real wastewater from the fertilizer industry. An attempt has been made to devise a suitable methodology mainly using a new device in the form of a vortex diode for hydrodynamic cavitation and also using adsorption, for several real wastewater streams from different locations in one major fertilizer industry of Maharashtra, India. The strategy involved the characterization of wastewaters, studies on the effective removal of chemical oxygen demand (COD), and devising solutions for effective reduction in ammoniacal nitrogen—a more serious issue in the fertilizer industry. The characterization of wastewater from different streams revealed huge variations in COD from 50 to 140,000 ppm and ammoniacal nitrogen from 6 to 1,700 ppm. Some effluent streams contained alcohol up to 5%. Hydrodynamic cavitation using vortex diode and adsorption with modified carbons were used to treat these streams. Cavitation studies were carried out on a pilot plant and the effect of pressure drop, cavitating device, and process intensification were studied. It was observed that the effluent treatment strategy requires careful identification and application of suitable treatment methods on the basis of the nature of the effluent. Also, hydrodynamic cavitation, using a vortex diode appears to be a techno-economically attractive option in treating fertilizer wastewater giving a very high reduction in COD and ammoniacal nitrogen (up to 85%), similar to adsorption. The results clearly identify the potential of newer methodologies in the treatment of effluents in the fertilizer industry.

We as GLANCO RECOVER & RECYCLE, before treating wastewater from the fertilizer production industry, are focusing initially on the “Recovery of salts / NH4 / PO4” in wastewater.

Typical Resin Exchanger system designed for Ammonium Recovery from effluents from Fertilizer Production Industry.