Separation of Biochar from Phosphorus-Rich Fraction of Bone Ash

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Sanimax is a company that produces valuable products from agricultural and food waste products. One wastestream that is managed by Sanimax is incinerated abattoir waste (bone ash). This incinerated material has asignificant calcium and phosphorus content from the incinerated skeletal mineral. The incinerated material isalso contaminated with carbon from the incinerated organic component. The NSERC Engage project goal is todissolve the calcium and phosphate-rich material, purify the solution, and precipitate dicalcium phosphatedihydrate - an animal feed supplement.Analysis of an example bone ash sample from Sanimax indicated that it is composed of a range of particlesizes, and particles of light and dark tones. It was hypothesized that the dark particles were carbon-rich biochar,and the lighter-toned particles were incinerated skeletal mineral. X-ray diffraction, Raman and infra-redspectroscopy, and phosphate-leaching data suggest that the phosphate content is not a function of particle size.However, a trial density separation effectively created lighter and darker-toned materials effectively. Thesematerials separated by density were chemically different as measured by x-ray diffraction, infra-redspectroscopy, and phosphate leaching data.This Engage Plus grant proposal goal is to determine the optimum waste preparation and separationtechnology to separate the less dense and phosphate-lean incinerated biochar from the more dense andphosphate-rich incinerated skeletal mineral. This separation will reduce the incinerated mass that will beprocessed by the dissolution and precipitation process. This in turn will reduce the size and cost of thedissolution and precipitation processes.