González, C, Fernández, B, Molina, F et al. (2 more authors) (2021) The determination of fertiliser quality of the formed struvite from a WWTP. Water Science and Technology. wst2021162. ISSN 0273-1223
Abstract
Struvite from nutrient-rich wastewaters has been identified as a potential substitute for commercial mineral fertilisers, with the added benefit of reducing threats to global food security by prolonging phosphate rock reserves. A fertilisation test using grass (Brachiaria brizantha Marandú) and a sand column leaching test was conducted to determine the agronomic effectiveness of struvite precipitates produced from the supernatant of dewatered sewage sludge (centrate) from a municipal Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP). The performance of this struvite as a fertiliser was compared with biosolids and commercial fertilisers (Urea and Triple15). The results show that the concentration of heavy metals in struvite was lower than in Biosolids and below the limits of Colombia and European fertiliser regulations. Struvite increased the uptake of N and P in grass, resulting in crop yields similar to other treatments tested. Struvite use as an effective slow-release fertiliser is highly dependent on the size of crystal particles, particularly in achieving low P losses, but resulted in high N loss in the sand columns tested; N loses from struvite were higher than in the commercial fertilisers due to the struvite small particle size. Therefore, struvite represents a suitable opportunity to recover and recycle nutrients from municipal sewage sludge, facilitating the effective reuse of P and N in agriculture and uptake by plants.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2021 The Authors. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY 4.0), which permits copying, adaptation and redistribution, provided the original work is properly cited (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
Keywords: | biosolid, centrate, crop yield, nutrients recovery, struvite |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Civil Engineering (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 12 May 2021 15:34 |
Last Modified: | 28 May 2021 14:08 |
Status: | Published online |
Publisher: | IWA Publishing |
Identification Number: | 10.2166/wst.2021.162 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:173831 |