Development and evaluation of polymer sorbents for Phosphorus recovery from waste streams

Polymeric sorbents have been proven to have a higher capacity towards P and mechanical stability but have never been extensively investigated for P recovery.<br><br>In this thesis, polymeric materials for P capture and recovery are investigated. Firstly, a polymer library was developed to screen different monomers and cross-linkers, and the best polymer candidate (e.g. polymers with higher capacity) was chosen for scale-up.

The synthesis was adapted to suspension polymerisation to produce polymeric beads, more suitable for flow systems. Several suspension syntheses were explored, and the best candidates were chosen for functionalisation with trimethylamine (TMA) and tris(2-aminoethyl)amine (TREN) to obtain amino-enriched materials and for further testing on model solutions. One material was used for sorption/desorption experiments, and it was proven to be stable over 50 cycles of regeneration, using ssNMR.

All the materials were compared with commercially available anion exchange resins, regarding capacity towards P. Finally, the polymers were tested on wastewater at different stages of treatment and in several dairy processing waste streams, showing enormous potential for P recovery in wastewater.<br><br><i>Thesis is embargoed until 31 July 2028.</i>