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Transformation of phosphorus by MgCl2 and CaCl2 during sewage sludge incineration

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Abstract

Phosphorus (P) recovery from sewage sludge (SS) have been regarded as an effective method of P recycling. The effects of incineration temperature, incineration time, and chlorine additives on the distribution of P speciation during sludge incineration were studied. Moreover, the reactions between model compounds AlPO4 and additives (MgCl2 and CaCl2) were investigated by thermogravimetric differential thermal analysis and X-ray diffraction measurements. The results demonstrated that the increase in temperature and time stimulated the volatilization of non-apatite inorganic phosphorus (NAIP) instead of apatite phosphorus (AP). MgCl2 and CaCl2 can greatly promote the conversion of NAIP to AP. Additionally, AlPO4 reacted with MgCl2 are incinerated at 500–600 °C to form Mg3(PO4)2, which is mainly due to the reaction of the intermediate product MgO and AlPO4. Reactions between AlPO4 and CaCl2 occurred at 700–750 °C and produced Ca2PO4Cl, which can be directly used with high bioavailability. These findings suggested that chlorine additives in the SS incineration process can obtain phosphorus-containing minerals with higher bioavailability to realize the resource utilization of P in sludge.

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Data availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This work was supported by the Program for Science and Technology Innovative Research (CTKY-ZDXM-2019-018), National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41472312), and Program for Innovative Research Team in University (No. IRT13078).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Environmental and Chemical Engineering, Shanghai University, No.99 Shangda Road, Shanghai, 200444, China

    Yunfeng Xu, Jingyan Chen, Fei Yang, Yangfan Fang & Guangren Qian

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  1. Yunfeng Xu
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  2. Jingyan Chen
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  3. Fei Yang
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  4. Yangfan Fang
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  5. Guangren Qian
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Jingyan Chen, Fei Yang, and Yangfan Fang. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Yunfeng Xu, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Guangren Qian.

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Xu, Y., Chen, J., Yang, F. et al. Transformation of phosphorus by MgCl2 and CaCl2 during sewage sludge incineration. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 60268–60275 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-13859-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-13859-w

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