Investigation of Phosphate Removal Capability of Blast Furnace Slag in Wastewater Treatment

Blast Furnace Slag (BFS) is a by-product of iron making with a potential to be used in different applications. In this research, BFS is used to investigate the phosphate removal ability in wastewater. BFS has the required concentrations of surface calcium to potentially precipitate phosphate from wastewater. Removal of phosphate from wastewater depends on variety of conditions, such as the size of BFS particles, adsorbent dose, contact time and pH. The conditions responsible for phosphate removal from wastewater with BFS were analysed and the phosphate removal capacity optimised according to the BFS chemical content. The results in this work demonstrated that the basicity (CaO/SiO2) of BFS has a reverse effect on phosphate removal capacity. High basicity reduces the capability of BFS for removal of phosphate. BFS composition before and after phosphate removal was determined with Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS), Fourier Transfer Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and UV-Vis spectrophotometry. The results revealed that the slag samples added varying concentrations of trace metals Al, Cd, Co and Hg into the treated water, which will need to be further conditioned by dilution with unpolluted water or other treatments before disposal or re-use.