Removal of Nitrogen in Swine Wastewater Using Zeolites

Swine operators flush the waste from swine houses into an anaerobic lagoon and spray on the fields. In order to avoid lagoons in future for swine wastewater, cost effective alternate technologies need to be developed. Swine waste contains high amounts of nitrogen specially ammonia and therefore, high ammonia adsorbing materials need to be screened. Natural and clinoptilolite modified with HDTMA zeolites have been proved to remove heavy metals from industrial wastewater. However, application of zeolites to animal waste is new. Three zeolites, one modified (ZK406SMZ) and two natural (chabazite) with two different grain sizes (1 mm and 2-4 mm) were used for batch and column sorption experiments. Also, these zeolites were used in column studies to measure the sorption of ammonia in swine wastewater. When NH4 was used in the concentration ranging from 0-1000 ppm for sorption studies, a linear sorption was found between solution concentration and NH4 sorption on zeolites. Sorption of NH4 was higher on natural zeolites than on modified zeolite. Approximately 80 to 90% sorption occurred with 1000 ppm NH4 in solution. The zeolites have proved to be a good material to remove NH4 in wastewaters.