How to transform a phosphorus waste stream into a fertilizer?Anders Nättorp, Nadja Rastetter, School of Life Sciences, FHNW

Background Outlook

State of the art of technical phosphorusrecovery in Europe

Background

Phosphorus: feeding the world

www.aguiaresources.com.au

Geopolitical risk and price instability

USGS 2019, World Bank 2016

2018 2040

15%

20%

12%

Municipal sewage sludge

Slaughterhouse waste

Food-waste (household and retail)

Demand uncovered

Recovery potential

9%

91%

Supply

European fossil Pproduction

Import

76%

17%

7%

Demand

Fertiliser

Feed additives

Other

Total 1'480'000 tP/a

EU could improve mineral P supply security through recovery

Hukari et al. 2015 (updated)

Conventional (organic) recycling today 0.15 Mt in sewage sludge and 1.8 Mt in manure

Swiss Network

Increasing European awareness of phosphorus criticality leads to action

2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018

Dutchplatform ESPP

German Platform

P rock critical raw

material

German Obligation

Swiss Obligation

P4 criticalraw material

New fertilizerregulation

German researchprogram

«Peak Phosphorus»

P Price spike

Global Traps

P-REX

EU consul-tation sus-tainable P

Technology demonstration andimplementation

projects e.g. Phos4You, Rephor

Research and insights

Organisations

Legislation

Italian Platform

CMC (Component Material Category)1. Virgin materials2. Mechanically processed plants…[11. Animal by-products] Underway:12. Phosphate salts13. Ashes14. Pyrolysis chars etc

The new fertilizer regulation

PFCs (Product Function Category)1. Fertiliser2. Liming material...7. Blends

End-of-Waste &

+Labelling Requirements+Conformity Assessment Procedures

Adopted. First products on market 2022 (requires new

standards)EC 2019

05.08.2019 9

«Our house is on fire»- climate collapse

05.08.2019Institute for Ecopreneurship - Environmental and water technologies 10

What can we do?Quick facts on risks

• 2°C makes extreme damage to ecosystems (IPCC 2018)

• Feedbacks loops from 2°C (Steffen et al. 2018)

• Negative emission technologies no solution (Kevin Anderson 2017)

Global carbon budget• Carbon budget 1.5°C is 420 Gt CO2eq (IPCC 2018)• Emissions 40 Gt CO2eq/ year today

Steep reduction needed, zero emissions2030 requested by Fridays for future

Act, enable, advocate

Action plans needed, not research

Sectoral solutions, e.g. agriculture

State of the art of technical phosphorusrecovery in Europe

Recovery routes from wastewater

WWTP Mono-incineration

Co-incineration

Drying Cementworks

Sludge, thermal

Ash thermal

Ash Leaching

Ash fertilizer

P >90%

P >90%

P >90%

P >70%

P 10% (50%)50%PSludge

leaching

Crystallisation(only EBPR)

Recovery routes from wastewater

Sludgeleaching

Sludge, thermal

Ash thermal

Ash leaching

Ash fertilizer

Crystallisation(only EBPR)

SludgeLeaching

Crystalli-sation

Sludge liquorS/L

Separation

DryingThermal

treatment

Ash Leaching

Acidulation

Blending, Confec-tioning

LLX, IEX, Precipitation

PurificationPlant availibility Concentration

Evaporation, S/L-separation

Sludgeleaching

Sludge, thermal

Ash thermal

Ash leaching

Ash fertilizer

Crystallisation(only EBPR)

Other

Appl

icab

lem

anur

e

Appl

icab

lem

eata

ndBo

nem

eal

Spörri et al. 2017

Fertilizer potential of recovered materials

Recovered Materials are often only sparely water soluble Fertilizer potential using

Solubility in neutral ammonium citrate Pot trials for «relative agronomic efficiency» (RFE) compared to Triplesuperphosphate

(TSP)

Cost assessment

Sludge and sludge water based processes, on WWTP

Dried sludge and ash based processes

Nättorp et al 2017

Is phosphorus recovery expensive?

Crystallisation Sludge leaching Sludge thermal, ash treatment, mono-incineration existing , no existing mono-incineration

16

Conventional fertilizer(TSP)

WW disposal cost

Nättorp et al 2017

Enviromental impacts by LCA- tendencies

17

Source: Kraus, Hellweg

Decreased human toxicity potential for processes with purification

Energy demand and GWP Improved by precipitation processes Small difference for ash processes, improved by

• High ash phosphorus content• High value product and byproducts

Bound. cond. strong influence on ash process result• Efficiency of incineration• Mitigation of N2O• Sourcing of sulphuric, hydrochloric acid

There are probably better ways to reduce global warming

Kraus 2019Hellweg 2018

20 processes for the wastewater stream, pilot or full scaleWhat is the best performance achieved by each process type?

TRL YieldSolubility

NAC Purity

Fossil energy vs monoinc.

Cost vs monoinc.

6 less less no more over +20%

7 50% 50% FPR OK depends 0 to +20%

8-9 80% 80% Standard less less 0Crystallisation (EBPR) 3Sludge Leaching 4Sludge and ash thermal 4Ash leaching 5Ash fertilizer 4

No

of

proc

esse

s

Morf 2018Kraus 2019

Nättorp 2017Wilken 2015

Phos4You- Demonstration of Recovery and Recycling in Northwestern Europe (2017-2022, Interreg V B NWE)

PNRW- Assessment for implementation in German region (2018-2020)

INSPIREWater- Recovery of phosphoric and sulphuric acid from pickling baths (H2020)

Pyrolysis technology for elimination of heavy metals and phosphorus recycling (3 projects, 2014-2022, Swiss innovation fund, H2020 )

Current projects on phosphorus recovery at FHNW, School of Life Sciences

OutlookDrivers and potential

Drivers

USGS 2019

2018 2040

Agriculture, compost

IncinerationCo- / Mono-

TechnicalRecovery

56% 23% 0%

Regulation80% recovery ash

20-50% sludge

Disposal Bianchini et al. 2016Regulations, ESPP 2019

European sludge disposal

Finland

Sweden

Austria

Germany2029/2032

Switzerland2026

Netherlands2020

Profitable. Ash processes break-even!

Increasing concernabout contaminants

Gradual development towards technical recovery from sewage sludge

Today Struvite

Ash, recycled

Tomorrow Sewage sludge ash

Recovery obligations

Development of technical recovery

1’000 t P/y

>10’000 t P/y

85’000 t P/y

75’000 t P/y

Ash today mostly chicken litter.Sources: Fibrophos, Kalfos, Bianchi 2016, K. v. Dijk 2015

1’800’000 t P/yManure Mineral P demand

1’500’000 t P/y

Potential of technical recovery150’000 t P/ySewagesludge

700’000 t P/ySlaughterhouse wasteSewage sludgeFood waste

Tap unused sources

Increase of stocks1’000’000 t P/y

KvDijk 2015

Processing

better storage

transport away from hotspots

clean, standardized products

improved plant availability and P/N

Inorganic and organic products

Europe is on the verge of substantial recycling of phosphorus from sewage sludge

ash and other ashes

Supply security is main driver, not environmental benefit

P recycling will increase WW treatment cost only with few percent

We could replace mineral fertilizer imports and achieve a circular P supply using

high volumes of treated manure and sludge

New fertilizer product regulation will facilitate this trend

The climate crisis is upon us, you as an expert need to act

Conclusions

Thank you for your attention!

ContactAnders Nättorp, School of Life Sciences, FHNW: anders.naettorp@fhnw.ch

Thank you to all involved project partners and other contributors

Swiss Phosphorus Network www.pxch.ch .

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Programme for Research, Technological Development and Demonstration under Grant Agreement no. 308645.

Bianchini A. et al 2016 Sewage sludge management in Europe: a critical analysis of data quality DOI: 10.1504/IJEWM.2016.10001645 ESPP 2019 Summary of Swiss and German regulations, http://pxch.ch/uploads/1/1/1/7/111701981/scope.pdf EC 2019 http://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-15103-2018-INIT/en/pdf Hellweg S. 2018

https://awel.zh.ch/internet/baudirektion/awel/de/abfall_rohstoffe_altlasten/abfall/siedlungsabfaelle/klaerschlamm/_jcr_content/contentPar/downloadlist_1/downloaditems/_kobilanz_bericht_zu.spooler.download.1527839087587.pdf/oekobilanz_bericht_phos4life.pdf

Hukari S. et al. 2015 P-REX policy brief (updated) https://zenodo.org/record/242550#.XFRY5CAxmUn Anderson K., START @ 20’, 2017 https://www.science.su.se/english/about-us/calendar/the-gordon-goodman-memorial-lecture-2017-kevin-

anderson-1.341476 Kraus, F et al.(2019) Phorwärts https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites/default/files/medien/1410/publikationen/2019-02-19_texte_13-

2019_phorwaerts.pdf Morf L. 2018 Verfahrenstechnische Marktanalyse für die Phosphorrückgewinnung aus dem Abwasserpfad

http://pxch.ch/uploads/1/1/1/7/111701981/18_07_05_vtma_schlussbericht_rev1.pdf Nättorp A. et al. (2017) Cost assessment of different routes for phosphorus recovery from wastewater using data from pilot and production

plants https://doi.org/10.2166/wst.2017.212 IPCC2018 https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/ Spörri et al. 2017 Beurteilung von Technologien zur Phosphor-Rückgewinnung

https://www.bafu.admin.ch/dam/bafu/de/dokumente/abfall/externe-studien-berichte/Beurteilung%20von%20Technologien%20zur%20Phosphor-Rueckgewinnung.pdf.download.pdf/EBP-Bericht_P-Technologien.pdf

Steffen et al. 2018 https://www.pnas.org/content/115/33/8252 USGS 2019 https://www.usgs.gov/centers/nmic/phosphate-rock-statistics-and-information Van Dijk et al “Phosphorus flows and balances of the European Union Member States” 2016

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969715305519 Wilken V. et al. 2015 Quantification of nutritional value and toxic effects of each P recovery product

https://zenodo.org/record/242550#.XFRY5CAxmUn World Bank 2016 https://databank.worldbank.org/databases/commodity-price-data

Sources

Valu

e ch

ain Fertilizer

Industry

http://infranetlab.org

Acidulation

Blending/ Granulation

Beneficiation

Sales and marketing

P-RecyclingPurification

Concentration

Increasing plant availability

Blending/ GranulationSales and marketing

FertilizerMarket

P-REX Report on market for P-recycling products 2014

Results fertilizer potential

*Die off of plants in two pots and limited growth in another two at pH 5 first year. >80% RFE at pH 7.

** >80% RFE at pH 5

Process MaterialRFE Y1

(average pH 5&7)

RFE Y2 (average pH

5&7)

Solubil ity in NAC+

H2O

RFE,Y1, RFE,Y2 and NAC ≥80%?

% %Sludge precipitation 1 Struvite 110 91 94 YESLiquor precipitation 1 Struvite 72 90 94 NO*Sludge leaching 2 Struvite 95 93 96 YESSludge metallurgic Slag 23 33 6 NOAsh leaching 1 CaP 80 95 95 YESAsh thermochem Na2CO3 Ash 93 86 99 YES MgCl2 Ash 47 48 28 NO**Sewage sludge ash Ash 31 41 16 NOSewage sludge, chem-P Sludge 53 67 95 NOSewage sludge, EPBR Sludge 87 102 90 YESTSP TSP 100 100 92 YES