Struvite precipitation for ammonia nitrogen removal in 7-aminocephalosporanic acid wastewater

7-Aminocephalosporanic acid wastewater usually contains high concentrations of ammonium (NH??-N), which is known to inhibit nitrification during biological treatment processes. Chemical precipitation is a useful technology to remove ammonium from wastewater. In this paper, the removal of ammonium from 7-aminocephalosporanic acid wastewater was studied. The optimum pH, molar ratio, and various chemical compositions of magnesium ammonium phosphate (MAP) precipitation were investigated. The results indicated that ammonium in 7-aminocephalosporanic acid wastewater could be removed at an optimum pH of 9. The Mg2?:NH??-N:PO? 3?-P molar ratio was readily controlled at a ratio of 1:1:1.1 to both effectively remove ammonium and avoid creating a higher concentration of PO? 3?-P in the effluent. MgCl?·6H?O + 85% H?PO? was the most efficient combination for NH??-N removal. Furthermore, the lowest concentration of the residual PO? 3?-P was obtained with the same combination. Struvite precipitation could be considered an effective technology for the NH??-N removal from the 7-aminocephalosporanic acid wastewater.