Struvite may not be a household word, but it is all too familiar to the operators of wastewater treatment plants. A crystalline mineral known chemically as magnesium ammonium phosphate hexahydrate, struvite occurs naturally in decomposing organic materials such as sludge from animal wastes and from treated wastewater. When it crystallizes on equipment surfaces in treatment plants, says Jonas Baltrusaitis, struvite can clog pipes, requiring them to be chemically cleaned or replaced and, in some cases, forcing a plant to be shut down. Baltrusaitis and his group have used advanced microscopy and spectroscopy techniques to study the formation of struvite crystals at the molecular level. Their work promises to lead to a cheaper, less energy-intensive conversion method and eventually to greater sustainability in wastewater treatment and in agriculture.
This work in the Baltrusaitis lab is supported by the newly funded National Science Foundation grant # 1710120 “INFEWS N/P/H2O: Chemical and structural transformations at low solubility magnesium mineral-wastewater interface during struvite formation and growth.”