Mainstream Ammonium Recovery to Advance Sustainable Urban Wastewater Management

O emissions often exceed the carbon emissions related to the electricity consumption for the process requirements of WWTPs. Considering these limitations, there is a need to develop alternative ammonium management approaches that center around recovery of ammonium from domestic wastewater rather than deal with its "destruction" into elemental dinitrogen. Current ammonium recovery techniques are applicable only at orders of magnitude above domestic wastewater strength, and so new techniques based on physicochemical adsorption are of particular interest. A new pathway is proposed that allows for mainstream ammonium recovery from wastewater based on physicochemical adsorption through development of polymer-based adsorbents. Provided adequate adsorbents corresponding to characteristics outlined in this paper are designed and brought to industrial production, this adsorption-based approach opens perspectives for mainstream continuous adsorption coupled with side-stream recovery of ammonium with minimal chemical requirements. This proposed pathway can bring forward an effective resource-oriented approach to upgrade the fate of ammonium in urban water management without generating hidden externalized environmental costs.