A study on recovery of ammonia from hydrolysis of urea in industrial effluents

Abstract

Nutrients can be removed from wastewater by either destruction or recovery. Ion exchange methods have been utilized by others for recovery of ammonia, nitrates, and phosphates. Urea hydrolysis requires elevated temperature and pressure along with energy inputs. However, these experiment data have shown that urea can be removed by hydrolysis utilizing the urease enzyme. The reported study covers results on hydrolysis and removal of urea wastewaters from a nitrogen fertilizer plant after concentrating the ammonia to about 11% on a weakly acidic cation exchanger then recovering the ammonium nitrate for reuse.