Objective
The overall objective of the work is to recycle agricultural wastes and residues into a slow release fertiliser by pyrolytic liquefaction with nitrogen addition through ammonoxidation and nutrient blending to form a high added value slow release fertiliser for the horticultural and agricultural industries. The key feature is the total recycling of agricultural wastes and residues into a unique and valuable fertiliser that can be safely used in a range of agricultural and horticultural applications. This approach therefore is a sustainable method of recycling agricultural materials into a useful and valuable non-food, non-fuel product. The product is flexible as a range of nutrients and additives can be included in the product as required for different applications. The pyrolysis process that liquefies the agro-materials is a well established technology that produces no wastes as all the by-products are either used in the process for energy or contained as essential components of the resultant liquid. The work programme is as follows:
A Produce slow release nitrogenous fertiliser. Fertiliser production will be carried out by three methods, the first of which has already been successfully demonstrated but the other two may provide a more cost effective processing route:
a reaction of nitrogen containing compounds with pyrolysis liquid,
b addition of the nitrogen containing compound to the biomass before pyrolysis,
c direct reaction of nitrogen containing compounds within the pyrolysis process.
The products from the three routes will be compared to determine the most effective fertiliser product and hence derive the most cost effective process. The addition of other essential nutrients will also be investigated. Solid fertiliser products will be initially produced as a free flowing dark bro powder, but alternative product formulations will be investigated including liq granules and pellets. Product samples will be made from different feedstocks, u different reaction conditions and with different ammonoxidation reagents.
B Test the slow release nitrogenous fertilisers. Growth trials on pot plants will be used to test the fertiliser samples in order to identify the most suitable product for growth using various criteria including nitrogen release rate, soil conditioning properties, level of application in the soil media, soil media substitution, release of micro-nutrients and toxicity. The fertiliser product will be extensively characterised. In addition, the fast pyrolysis by-product char can act as a fertiliser support media and also release the original inorganic elements present in the agro-industrial waste thereby also recycling micro-nutrients. Although the short term focus is on the specialist slow release, high added value fertiliser market, there are wider opportunities for general fertiliser use in the longer term.
C Produce and test larger quantities of slow release nitroaenous fertiliser. The most promising slow release fertiliser product from the evaluatory tests in Part B will be produced in larger quantities of 20-50 kg for larger scale field trials on suitable agricultural crops including miscanthus in Denmark and wheat in the UK. These results will be used to assess the short, medium and long term performance of the fertiliser in terms of release rate, degree of mineralisation of nitrogen, crop growth and other criteria.
D Desian, cost and evaluate commercial scale opportunities. The market potential for the product will be evaluated for key market opportunities in Europe. Comparative costs with other conventional slow release nitrogenous fertilisers will be made and potential markets assessed. A fully integrated demonstration/commercial plant will be specified, designed, costed and assessed techno-economically.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringwaste managementwaste treatment processesrecycling
- agricultural sciencesagriculture, forestry, and fisheriesagriculture
- agricultural sciencesagricultural biotechnologybiomass
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Topic(s)
Call for proposal
Data not availableFunding Scheme
CSC - Cost-sharing contractsCoordinator
B4 7ET Birmingham
United Kingdom