Phosphorus removal in food manufacturing industry by using high fe steel slag filter system

Abstract

Improper removal of phosphorus from industrial wastewater including from food manufacturing lead to eutrophication in water bodies and it is a global concern. This is due to the requirement of a high cost and complexity of phosphorus removal system as it is commonly removed in tertiary wastewater treatment. Therefore, it is a high time to develop an alternative low-cost wastewater treatment with high capability on removing phosphorus from industrial wastewater. Thus, the main objective of this study is to investigate the potential of a high Fe unaerated steel slag filter system in removing phosphorus from food manufacturing wastewater. Steel slag is a steel manufacturing by-product and has been kindly supplied by Antara Steel Mills Sdn,Bhd., Pasir Gudang. Treated wastewater sample from one of the local food manufacturing industry has been sampled and fed the high Fe steel slag filter system which has been set-up in the Wastewater Engineering Laboratory, FKAAS, UTHM. The system has been acclimatized for 2 weeks. Afterwards, influent and effluent of the system have been collected for analysis of selected parameters including DO, Temperature, pH, Turbidity, Total P, COD and Alkalinity to monitor the performance of the system for 2 months. Results from this study shows that the high Fe steel slag system has a potential in removing Total P from wastewater as their removal efficiency range from 46-65%. However, all the monitored parameters were not comply with the effluent standard. Therefore, the performance can be improved with a proper pretreatment and primary wastewater treatment prior to apply the polishing effluent system; high Fe steel slag system. Furthermore, as the system can be considered as an easy maintenance and low-cost, it can be adopted by the local food manufacturing industry to improve their existing wastewater treatment system. Hence, the good final effluent quality can be produced and simultaneously decreased the environmental burden due to phosphorus in industrial wastewater.