Project Overview
Removal of phosphorus from wastewater is essential to prevent formation of toxic algal blooms in receiving waters. These blooms limit the uses to which the recycled contaminated water can be put. Current wastewater treatment plants removing phosphorus, microbiologically rely on cycling biomass through aerobic and anaerobic reactors to select microbial communities that accumulate phosphorus. This project evaluated and developed a process which is essentially aerobic, and examined its potential to be installed as an add-on unit to a conventional system to produce an effluent containing less than 0.1mg per l phosphorus. If achievable, the treated water will be environmentally safer, and suitable for more diverse uses.
