Sustainable and Safe Re-use of Municipal Sewage Sludge for Nutrient Recovery

01.11.2005 - 31.12.2008
Research funding project
Municipal sewage sludges are often highly polluted with organics, such as hormones, antibiotics, endocrine disruptors, persistent organic pollutants (POP¿s), and inorganics such as heavy metal compounds. In the last couple of years, the agricultural application of sewage sludge has decreased in the European Union, while the interest in alternative sludge disposal routes to protect farmland and human health has increased. However, following this strategy, nutrients (most notably phosphorus) are irreversibly lost and the need for mineral fertiliser products will increase. The scarce resource phosphorus could be recovered if a sound recycling strategy is developed and applied. The SUSAN project is aimed to develop a sustainable and safe strategy for nutrient recovery from sewage sludges using thermal treatment. Mono-incineration of the sludges will completely destruct the organic pollutants in a first step. The incineration residues are ashes with a high phosphorus content that still contain heavy metal compounds above the limits for agricultural use. Phosphorus in the ashes exhibits low bioavailability - a disadvantage in farming. Therefore, in a second thermochemical step heavy metals will be removed and phosphorus transferred into mineral phases available for plants. Besides technological development of the thermochemical process, the products fertilisation performance, the product design and the sustainability of the whole process chain are emphasised in the SUSAN project.

People

Project leader

Project personnel

Institute

Grant funds

  • European Commission (EU) 6.FP: INNOVATION - Research and innovation 6.Rahmenprogramm für Forschung European Commission - Framework Programme European Commission Call identifier FP6-2004-Global-3 Application number 016079

Research focus

  • Efficient Utilisation of Material Resources: 100%

Keywords

GermanEnglish
Klärschlammsewage sludge
PhosphorrückgewinnungPhosporus-Recovery
MonoverbrennungMono-Incineration
KlärschlammascheSewage Sludge Ash

External partner

  • ASH DEC Umwelt AG
  • Slibverwerking Noord-Brabant N.V.
  • Kemira GrowHow Oyj
  • FAL - Bundesforschungsanstalt für Landwirtschaft
  • BAMAG GmbH
  • Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung (BAM)

Publications