Phosphorus (P) is an essential nutrient and major economic factor. The EU covers its demands by importing Phosphate rock listed as critical raw material due to its scarce resource. Sewage sludge from waste water treatment plants is a promising alternative source of P. RECaPhos focus was the development of a novel method for phosphorus recovery based on the thermo-chemical reaction of sewage sludge, in the presence of CaO in a fluidized-bed reactor, assuring in the same time the destroy of dangerous pathogens, antibiotics and contaminations.
Initial goal was the development, optimizatiuon, and evaluation of the novel method and the production of rules and data for process up scaling purposes. This should be achieved by means of development of innovative models to investigate the thermodynamics and the kinetics of the process media. Experimental data from host institution facilities and data from literature should be used for models validation and optimization. The results should be used as a basis for the design of a demo plant as well as for the identification/evaluation of the process economics and commercialization potential. Two reference cases should be studied, one for a new plant and one for a retrofit of an existing fluidized bed combustion plant. Comparison with other competitive processes should be realized.
RECaPHOS is original, highly innovative, and ambitious since the same cheap widely available, natural, non toxic, and environmental friendly Ca-based material is used for P adsorption and subsequent P recycling as it is directly used as feedstock for fertilizer production, closing a natural cycle. RECaPHOS is an excellent and unique opportunity for the researcher who is a mother of two daughters to restart her career after more than 4 years of career break prior to call deadline due to maternity and after resettling back to Europe/Germany after a 3 years continuous stay outside Europe in the last 5 years, in a highly innovative non-profit academic institution that supports women and work life balance.
