Affiliations: [a] School of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), 81310 Skudai, Johor, Malaysia | [b] Centre for Environmental Sustainability and Water Security (IPASA), Research Institute for Sustainable Environment (RISE), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), 81310 Skudai, Johor, Malaysia | [c] Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM), 86400 Parit Raja, Batu Pahat, Johor, Malaysia | [d] Department of Mathematical Sciences, Faculty of Science, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), 81310 Skudai, Johor, Malaysia
Abstract: The worldwide demand of phosphorus (P) is rising rapidly; however phosphate ores are not renewable. Fish bones contain high amounts of P, but hardly recycled or reused. Therefore, this study investigated P extraction from fish waste bones by acidic leaching method. The study shows that P content in fish bones ash is around 17 wt.%. Acidic leaching of P is carried out using different concentrations of sulphuric acid (H2SO4), to determine the optimum condition of P recovery. More than 97% of P is extracted using 2 M H2SO4 and an acid-ash ratio of 1.5 kg H2SO4/kg ash. Besides, it was found that a reaction period of 90 min is enough to accomplish complete dissolution of fish waste bones ash. The present work suggested that recovering P from fish bones ash is worthy, which is highly advantageous for further applications that apply P additions.
Keywords: Phosphate, fish bones ash, sulphuric acid, phosphorus recovery
