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Environmental application of engineering magnesite slag for phosphate adsorption from wastewater

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Abstract

Herein, magnesite slags (MS), which remain after sulfuric acid extraction from light burnt magnesite in the magnesite industry, were used as phosphate adsorbents in wastewater. The MS were calcined under 700 °C to enhance phosphate adsorption. The calcined magnesite slags (CMS) were characterized by nitrogen adsorption–desorption isotherm, X-ray diffraction, and scanning electron microscopy. A series of batch adsorption experiments were carried out to test the phosphate adsorption capacity of CMS. The results showed that the calcific treatment promoted the conversion from Mg, Ca, Fe, etc. compound to metal oxide of the MS. The generated metal oxide particles resulted in 237.4 mg/g increase in the phosphate adsorption capacity. The phosphate adsorption isotherm of CMS fitted the Langmuir model better, and the maximum adsorption capacity of CMS was 526 mg/g. The adsorption kinetics of phosphate on CMS can be described by the pseudo-second-order model. The phosphate removal efficiency was greater than 98% in 300 mg/L phosphate solution. Mechanism investigation results indicated that phosphate was adsorbed by CMS through MgO protonation, electrostatic attraction, Mg-P complexation, and ligand exchange. The results obtained in this work demonstrate that the CMS is a potential effective adsorbent for removal and reutilization phosphate from P-contaminated water, due to it can be employed as a fertilizer after phosphate adsorption.

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Data availability

All data generated or analyzed during this study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the Government of Liaoning Province and the Department of Science and Technology for the funding through project Liaoning Revitalization Talents Program (XLYC2007185).

Funding

This work was supported by grants from the Foundation for Liaoning Revitalization Talents Program (project No. XLYC2007185). Doctor-enterprise research project of Yingkou (QB-2021–03), Basic scientific research project of colleges and universities of Liaoning Education Department (project No. LJKZ1202). and High-level talents research project of Yingkou Institute of Technology (project No. YJRC202001).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Liaoning Key Laboratory of Chemical Additive Synthesis and Separation, Yingkou Institute of Technology, 46 Bowen Road, Yingkou, 115014, China

    Hai Liang, Panliang Guo, Wanting Wang & Zhaonan Sun

  2. College of Chemical Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, 116024, China

    Hai Liang

  3. Yingkou Magnesite Chemical Ind Group Co., Ltd., Yingkou, 115100, China

    Yunhong Yang

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  1. Hai Liang
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  4. Wanting Wang
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Contributions

Hai Liang contributed to the investigation, conceptualization, data curation, writing-original draft, reviewing, and methodology. Panliang Guo and Wanting Wang performed experiment and data collection. Zhaonan Sun and Yunhong Yang contributed to editing and reviewing; all authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Hai Liang.

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Liang, H., Guo, P., Yang, Y. et al. Environmental application of engineering magnesite slag for phosphate adsorption from wastewater. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 59502–59512 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-20029-z

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