The fourth edition of the International Conference on manure management and valorization (ManuREsource) has taken place on 27th and 28th November 2019. Around 200 participants gathered in Hasselt (Belgium) to demonstrate the importance of animal manure valorization in circular economy and to discuss the obstacles that are currently surrounding this transition. The ReNu2Farm project actively participated in several sessions: a poster session, a parallel presentation session and round tables. Read More
In 2011, Outotec has acquired and further developed the AshDec® process to produce a phosphate fertilizer from sewage sludge ash by thermochemical treatment. The purpose is to remove heavy metals from the feed material and to convert the insoluble phosphate species created in the incineration step to highly plant available calcium-sodium/potassium phosphates. In the process, sewage sludge ash is mixed with sodium/ potassium additives and dried sewage sludge as reducing agent and heated up to about 900 °C in a rotary kiln. Heavy metals are vaporized under reducing conditions to the gas phase and are condensed in the filter system to be disposed with the filter dust. Read More
On 27th and 28th November 2019, the ManuREsource conference is hosted by VCM in Hasselt, Belgium. ManuREsource is the conference in Western Europe for the manure treatment community. At this occasion, several members of the ReNu2Farm consortium will present (preliminary) results. Read More
This October, Soil-Concept hosted the partner meeting for the Interreg project ReNu2Farm. The project partners are from Ireland (University of Limerick, Cork Institute of Technology and Institute of Technology Carlow), France (ARVALIS Institut du végétal), Belgium (Universiteit Gent and Inagro), the Netherlands (NMI) and Germany (Outotec and IZES). Read More
A cross-national certification scheme is not implemented yet. But newly the European Commission has introduced the CE certification scheme for organic and recycled-derived fertilizing products. Besides a certification scheme, it is important to create a broad social awareness that is lead by a strong political will. Read More
One strand of our project focuses on comparing the availability of nutrients like phosphorus in the soil for several recycling-derived fertilisers (RDFs). The phosphorus of the organic RDFs can be of mineral or organic forms. In most cases the mineral form is predominant. The chemical form depends on the origin of the product (animal species and way of feeding them…), as well as possible treatments applied (composting, liming, heat treatments…). The origin and the treatments before spreading can influence the short-term availability of phosphorus. On the field, RDFs provided by several suppliers are tested in France by Arvalis to assess the short, mid and long term availability of phosphorus in the soil. Read More
One of the project tasks is to deliver an inventory report that represents an actualization on the progress of market-ready techniques, building on previous benchmark reports published under projects like ARBOR and BIOREFINE. Read it here. Read More
As part of WP T2, D2.2, plant pot trials were conducted under controlled conditions to determine fertilizer performance at a level of plant availability, and to determine the nutrient use efficiency of the recycling-derived fertilizers. Read More
The Interreg NWE ReNu2Farm project aims at increasing the recycling rates of plant nutrients Nitrogen (N), Phosphorous (P) and Potassium (K). P and K are limited and finite resources, and production of N fertilisers is energy intensive. Despite a number of recovery technologies been at a mature stage, the use of recycling-derived fertiliser (RDF) products by farmers has been limited to date. The aim of ReNu2Farm is to put the farming community at the heart of the research, therefore stakeholder engagement is essential to the success of this project. The ReNu2Farm team reached out to the largest stakeholder i.e. the farmers to identify the requirements of farmers to encourage them to use recycling-derived fertilisers. Over 1,200 farmers from seven different countries (Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxemburg, The Netherlands and the UK), were surveyed as part of the ReNu2Farm project. Read More
