Nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) should be removed and recycled from wastewater in order to reduce the nutrient load to recipient waters, avoiding contamination of groundwater and conserve resources. There is a need to pay more attention to phosphorus (P) removal and recycling from wastewater due to limited availability of phosphorus recourses. For such purpose reactive filter media can be used to remove nutrient from wastewater as a sustainable technology. The present study was aimed to evaluate calcium silicate hydrate crystallization in Absol as a reactive filter media for removal and recycle of phosphorus from household wastewater and assess physical and chemical characteristics of Absol. A study of the color removing capacity of Absol was also performed. Several batch experiments were done for comparing absorption mechanism. Collected data were applied to Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models to study type of adsorption isotherms and pseudofirst- order and second order models were run for study of adsorption kinetics. The experiment demonstrated a very high P and Methylene Blue (MB) sorption capacity. The amount of adsorbed P and MB vary with initial solution concentrations, contact time, and adsorbent dosage. Both equilibrium data (P, MB) were fitted very well in the Langmuir isotherm equation, confirming the monolayer physical sorption and adsorption kinetic followed by the pseudo-second order kinetic model. It is concluded that Absol can have potential to be use for the removal of P, textile dye contaminants and probably also pharmaceuticals present in wastewater.

Private wastewater treatment facilities release tons of phosphorus to the aquatic environment due to the insufficient removal efficiency in conventional soil infiltration systems. Reactive filter materials have demonstrated promising P removal rates. Laboratory-scale column experiments were carried out using Absol® and Polonite® in dual infiltration media and results were compared with Polonite® functioning as the only layer of reactive filter material. Two sets of experiments were arranged with layer lengths of 5 cm and 15 cm which were operated for 50 and 119 days respectively. Columns with an additional layer of Absol® demonstrated very good average removal rates of 85.99 % and 99.13 % in both experiments while the effluent in the former exceeded the maximum allowed P concentration shortly after half of the total time of the experiment. On the other hand, O-P concentration in collected samples from dual filter media with 15 cm layers of Absol® and Polonite® (column B1) was as low as 0.04 mg/l after 119 days of operation exhibiting high potentials for Absol® in local wastewater treatment. Levels of pH in treated samples showed a decreasing trend in all columns which was similarly simultaneous with high removal rates observed in B1.