Case study 09 / 12 · Division I
Division I · Case Study 09
Fertilisers
Stripping + Precipitation + Bio-N + ZLD
Fertiliser-plant effluents are dominated by ammonia, nitrate, urea, phosphate and fluoride at high TDS. KEMISTA recovers nitrogen as marketable product, precipitates struvite, removes residual nitrogen biologically and crystallises salts.
85%
Nitrogen recovery
95%
Water recovery
Yes
Salt recovery
Selected treatment train
Condensate
→
EQ + pH
→
Ammonia stripping
→
Struvite precip
→
Biological N
→
Evaporator / crys
→
Reuse
Indicative influent characteristics
pH
–
4–11
NH₃-N
mg/L
500–5,000
NO₃-N
mg/L
200–2,000
Phosphate
mg/L
50–500
Fluoride
mg/L
10–200
TDS
mg/L
5,000–30,000
Cumulative water recovery
recovery (%)
55%
Strip+ppt
78%
+Bio
93%
+Evap
96%
+Crys
Why this configuration
Nitrogen recovery as ammonium sulphate turns a pollutant into product.
Struvite precipitation co-recovers nitrogen and phosphorus as slow-release fertiliser.
Biological polishing removes residual nitrate to consent.
ZLD crystallisation recovers salts and approaches zero liquid discharge.
Your sector not listed, or a stream that defies the categories?
KEMISTA characterises the stream and engineers a bespoke train — that is what bench and pilot testing are for.