Dissolving Ammonia from Water

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How to remove dissolve ammonia from water?

The value of ammonia is 30 ppm.

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18 Answers

  1. We have very good experience with Membrane distillation (MD). MD is an emerging, separation technology which can be applied for communal and industrial water treatment as well as for resource recovery. If you are interested I can provide you with some more results of our pilot plant which was situated at a communal WWTP in Austria.

  3. Nitrification is the most common way to biologically  remove ammonia  in wastewater lagoons. In this process,  ammonia  treatment occurs via bacteria already present in the  water . These bacteria break down the  ammonia  and eventually promote the release of nitrogen gas into the atmosphere.

    Wastewater Ammonia Removal via Nitrification Requires:

    1. Healthy levels of dissolved oxygen (DO) in your lagoon
    2. BOD to be removed first.
    3. Waste water pH needs to be 7.5–8.0
    4. Sufficient waste water temperature
    5. Adequate mixing.
    6. Absence of toxins that can inhibit the process

     

    2 Comments

    1. Biological treatment is probably the most effective for removal of multiple contaminants cost effectively (typically very low OPEX) and is an environmentally friendly approach for ammonia removal. Breakpoint consumes large amounts of chlorine mainly due to additional reduced compounds present in the water that consume chlorine (organics, or Fe, for example). Ion exchange is simple but requires pre-treatment and becomes costly in the presence of other contaminants (hardness, Fe, Mn, BOD). If this is a drinking water application there is a risk of DBP generation and challenge controlling chlorine residual. Any conventional WWTP treats ammonia by nitrification. For polishing purposes of treated effluent (Permit requirements?) or for treating groundwater,  our biological solution, NoMonia, reduces ammonia and other contaminants  to non-detected levels without use of chemicals. 

      https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronit-erlitzki-phd-b906535/

       

    2. Dear Prem Sir. Actually I have a deep tube well. The rate of ammonia in the water is 30 ppm/lit. At present I am directly supplying the water to consumers, but I want to remove ammonia from that water. If you have any cost effective solution please let me know.

  5. Shiva,

    You may want to contact a company here in the States call 3M. They have a product called Liqui-Cel that replaces older style degassifiers with cartridge style membrane system at much higher flow rates. Although they're primarily used for degassing O, and CO, there is some possibility for ammonia scavenging. Call them and discuss your process for more information.

    1 Comment

    1. Thanks a lot Sir for your valuable information.

  6. Hi,

    simple way is chlorination to the "breaking point". Ammonia ions are oxidized to chlormines and finally to gas-nitrogen. You must make laboratory test for dose estimation (chlorine is consumed also by other matter - iron, manganese, organic compounds...).

    Ladislav

  7. Dear Shiva,

    I suggest two alternative techniques, both more friendlt than using bacteria:

    a) in the case of a small flow of water: Just stripping by air in a degassing tower filled with random plastic rings. The high solubility of Ammonia in water and the rather small concentration require for a huge amount of air, and therefore this technique is not suggested for high flow of water

    b) filtration through cationic exchanging resins. This technique is well suitable for high flow of water. The necessary regeneration cycle (by acid: example HCl) is justified by the high flow rate of the water to be treated by exchanging ammonia with H+ provided by the regenerated resins.

    1 Comment

    1. Shiva, why do you need to remove the ammonia? Is the water for drinking, an industrial process, or is it wastewater?

      Marco, why do you say that air-stripping and ion exchange are "more friendly than using bacteria"?

      1. Nitrifying bacteria are autortophic, that is they cannot use external organic carbon and are, therefore, safe to use (non-pathogenic). They oxidise the ammonia to nitrate, via nitrite. The WHO guideling value for nitrate (as NO3-) is 50 mg/L (50 ppm), so 30 ppm ammonia (as NH3?) will produce 109 ppm nitrate (as NO3-). So,if required for drinking, some denitrification will be required.

      2. Air-stripping surely required pH adjustment into the alkaline region, to convert ammonium to ammonia gas for stripping, and adjusting back to neutral for consumption. Also, transporting ammonia into the atmosphere is not a good idea, from a pollution point of view.

      3. Ion exchange creates a waste stream that has to be disposed of, surely that is expensive?

  8. One way would be to treat the water with chlorine then passing it through an air column and blasting it with air.  The water would form chloramine which is highly volatile.

  9. One way would be to treat the water with chlorine then passing it through an air column and blasting it with air.  The water would form chloramine which is highly volatile.

  10. Or, for something completely different, try vapor compression distillation.  We have done this routinely at 94+% thermal efficiency and approximately 95% removal rate.

  12. A a membrane is expensive for the purpose..biological treatment is better (cost-benefits) or macrophytes, it depends... A lot of variables you may asses before deciding. What is the purpose of treatment, only ammonia removal? Does water contains C, S,  too? It is an industrial effluent? a River? raw water? What is your budget? What is your available area for treatment? 

  14. To airstrip ammonia the pH must be at 10.5 or higher. At that value you will get almost all the ammonia out. The only other method would be biological to nitrify the ammonia.

  15. How Much water are You dealing with?
    Primary water or industrial stream? Biofilters could easily get rid of Ammonium ion and lower its value down to 0.05 ppm in Your primary stream.
    All You need is pressure sandfilter and small air (O2) saturator. Nitrifying/denitrifying bacteria will do the job for You.
    Contact Us for details and equipment setup.
    Tiziano 

  16. Depending on other chemistry and regulatory items you can, as pointed out, raise the pH and aerate, you can also use a semipermeable membrane to extract the high pH ammonia into an acid stream on the other side of the membrane.  That may prove inefficient depending on many factors.  You can lower the pH (sulfuric acid) and then operate an RO to reject the ammonium sulfate.  Anything passed may be treated with a conventional softener for final polishing.   Much of this experience comes from treating phosphate wastes which have much higher ammonia concnetrations.

    1 Comment

    1. a membrane is expensive for the purpose..

      2 Comment replies

      1. I meant "if" this is a small water stream then...  Sorry for confusion.

      2. This is an extremely small water stream so the membrane system would not be expensive overall.  The treatment process depends on the source, balance of water chemistry, and final disposition of the product water. 

  17.  Raise the pH to close to 12 and aerate.  Depends if your air pollution standards allow without trapping the ammonia. Trap the gas in water or with an acid  in water then you will have a commercial product--cleaning agent or nitrogen fertilizer.

    2 Comments

    2. adjust pH then aerate

      2 Comment replies