Phosphorus recovery from dairy manure wastewater by fungal biomass treatment

Polyphosphate accumulating fungi was cultured to remove and recover the excessive phosphorus from dairy manure wastewater (DMW). The microbial treatment removed 83.9% of phosphorus in 20-fold diluted DMW by the fungal biomass in 12 h. At the meantime, 33.6% of chemical oxygen demand, 46.5% of total nitrogen, and 89.4% of total ammonia nitrogen were removed as well. At seventh reuse batch, the cells could still remove 50.4% of phosphorus from the diluted wastewater. The average phosphorus removal efficiency in seven reuse batches was calculated as 62.1%, the nitrogen-to-phosphorus ratio in DMW increased from 3.6 : 1 to 6.3 : 1. With the treatment, DMW will be more suitable for farmland irrigation, with the better nutritional ratio to support crop growth, and it will help mitigate phosphorus pollution to water bodies caused by over-applied phosphorus in the farmland.