Current fertiliser production has several sustainability issues: while the production of mineral nitrogen fertilisers requires high energy inputs, phosphorus fertilisers are produced by mining a finite reservoir of rock phosphate. In a circular economy, the potential to valorise unused bio-waste streams should therefore be exploited to produce bio-based fertilisers (BBFs) that reduce dependence on mineral fertilisers.
This valorisation of sidestreams into biobased fertilisers is at the core of the ReLeaf project: two main sources of sidestreams, namely sewage sludge and waste generated along the food value chain, will be used to produce the raw materials at laboratory scale. This production will be demonstrated at pilot scale at five different sites across Europe. Finally, the production parameters for marketable fertilisers will be validated at pre-industrial scale.
FiBL will coordinate the work package on the sustainability assessment of the produced fertilisers and will conduct pot experiments to determine the agronomic performance of the fertilisers.
Project partner
cordis.europa.eu: Project on the CORDIS website
