DEVELOPMENT OF BIOFERTILIZERS (ESTRUVITA) FROM PHOSPHORUS AND NITROGEN RECOVERY FROM PISCICULTURE RESIDUAL WATERS
Pisciculture, Struvite, Characterization, Effluents, Nutrients.
Fish farming has been pointed out and treated as an activity that can be quite impactful to the environment. Among the environmental impacts, we highlight the disposal of raw industrial effluents in water bodies, sedimentation and obstruction of water flows, eutrophication, discharge of tailings and pollution by chemical residues used in the creation. The high amounts of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) and the accumulation of organic matter in the sediments at the bottom of the tanks are some of the main impacts caused by fish farming effluents on aquatic ecosystems. The concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus present in fish farming effluents are among the main causes of eutrophication of natural watercourses that receive untreated disposal. In view of the above problem, this project aims to recover macronutrients present in fish farming effluents, from their treatment on a bench scale, aiming at the development of biotechnological products with ecofriendly fertilizer function. To carry out the work techniques will be used to remove nutrients from the effluents and analysis and characterization in laboratories. The effluents will be collected in fish farming tanks in the Santarém Pará region. One nutrient removal technique is by precipitation of magnesium (Mg) and ammonium (NH4 +) hexahydrate phosphate, called struvite (NH4MgPO46H2O), which occurs in a molar ratio of N: Mg: P equal to 1: 1: 1, typically surrounded by six water molecules, whose precipitation depends on physico-chemical conditions such as pH, ion concentration and temperature. The struvite being a solid crystal resulting from the precipitation with the molecules arranged in a repetition pattern, in the three spatial dimensions. The characterization of the products obtained by precipitation will be carried out through: X-Ray Diffractometry (XRD), X-Ray Fluorescence (FRX), Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). The removal of nutrients from fish farming effluents is a challenge due to the greater restrictions and criteria established by environmental agencies. The reuse of Phosphorus and Nitrogen is of great value, using struvite as a slow-release fertilizer of excellent quality that can be used directly in horticulture, agriculture. At the end of the project, we expect the removal of nutrients from fish farming effluents, through the precipitation of struvite, the chemical and mineralogical characterization of the precipitate, aiming at its use as a low-cost fertilizer.