Recently, the European Research Council has awarded 1.65 million dollars to an engineer at Aarhus University in Denmark in support of the REBOOT project, which aims to develop sustainable liquid waste management while providing a feasible method of recovery of resources, such as phosphorus.
Europe, not having its own phosphorus reserves, essentially gets the phosphorus they need for agriculture from North Africa, which imports the mined phosphate rocks to Europe at a rate of about 2.6 million tons per year. According to project head, chemical engineer, and AU Department of Engineering assistant professor, Patrick Biller, the process of mining, refining, and transporting of these phosphate rocks produces about 3.1 pounds of carbon dioxide for every pound of phosphoric fertilizer produced.
Seeing how scarce phosphorus is compared to the demand, the REBOOT project aims to extract valuable resourcessuch as phosphorus from liquid waste by using HTL technology. HTL, or hydrothermal liquefaction, is a type of technology that makes use of considerably high temperature and pressure to produce biocrude from biomass in just 15 minutes using a continuous reactor. In this case, the future researchers will use a pilot reactor, which will be modified for the project. The high temperature and pressure are advantageous in the process as it destroys hazardous materials like microplastics, pathogens, and pharmaceutical waste, including antibiotics found in liquid waste. The biocrude product is very analogous to fossil crude that can be used to produce chemicals, fuel, and bitumen.
Biller reported that he expects to recover 95 to 99 percent of the phosphorus from the liquid waste and can then be used as raw material to produce phosphoric fertilizers. They are also looking into extracting about 65 percent of the carbon in the form of biocrude, which they plan to utilize after hydrogenation. As byproducts, freshwater would easily be discharged or used for other purposes; carbon dioxide, depending on its purity, would be used to make carbon-negative fuels or sold to beverage companies to make carbonated drinks; and hydrogen would be utilized in the previously mentioned hydrogenation of the biocrude.
Biller expressed enthusiasm and gratitude as he was awarded the grant.
"I am very grateful to have been awarded this grant, which makes it possible to develop this exciting new technology that will enable us to recover valuable phosphorus from waste otherwise difficult to manage," Biller said.
Project REBOOT will commence when Biller forms a research team in January 2020, the start of five years covered by the research grant from ERC.
