"Plants need three main ingredients: nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Nitrogen is not a problem, it is in the air. Potassium is available in Belarus and Germany. The biggest problem is phosphorus, which is practically unavailable, and the stocks are exhausted. A life without phosphorus does not exist, because it is a component of DNA, proteins. The problem is to recover as much phosphorus as possible, which would otherwise be lost" - told PAP chief project scientist, Professor Henryk Górecki.

The problem of the efficient use of phosphorus is that, on the one hand, it is not available in sufficient quantities for industrial use, including the production of fertilizers. On the other hand, it occurs in the wastewater treatment process, in the form of phosphates. And, as waste, it is lost.

"Phosphorus is present in the bones, and in human urine. It is found in various wastes of agri-food industry, it is a huge mass. Even in dishwashers we have a lot of phosphorus, but in a form not completely absorbed by plants. We are looking for a way to change it" - explained Prof. Gorecki.

When plants lack phosphorus, they grow more slowly, reaching smaller sizes and, consequently, they are less valuable as food. The challenge is therefore to recover phosphorus that used to be was irretrievably lost, and produce compounds needed in agriculture in a way that is not harmful to the environment. Conventional method of decay, according to Prof. Gorecki, produces huge amounts of phosphogypsum waste, which is stacked, for example, on the floodplain of the Odra - 1.5 to 2 million tons per year.

"The new solution is to recover phosphorus from both the bone, as well as ash from incineration of sewage sludge. For this purpose we use a bacterium. It is known to accompany tooth-decay in young children. These bacteria are used to change the properties of phosphate raw materials. In other words, the bacterium affects the materials so that plants can absorb them" - explained the professor.

The project "Renewable sources of phosphorus - resource base for a new generation fertilizer" will continue until October 2016. Consortium members have over PLN 4 million funding from the National Research and Development Centre. The money will be divided in proportion to the tasks. The project leader is Wrocław University of Technology, working with two contractors: Fertilizer Research Institute in Puławy and the Department of Agricultural Systems, University of Warmia and Mazury.

Project manager is Dr. Agnieszka Saeid from the Faculty of Chemistry, Wrocław University of Technology. The university will develop technological variants of phosphate fertilizers based on various renewable raw materials. Scientists will use ashes from burned dried sludge from sewage treatment plants and products resulting from the processing of bones. All of these raw materials contain a lot of phosphorus. Products that will result from the project will be prepared for registration.

Fertilizer Research Institute in Pulawy will verify the technical concepts prepared at Wrocław University of Technology in pilot plant scale. The work will be supervised by Dr. Andrzej Biskupski.

According to the UWM website, the team from the Department of Agricultural Systems at the Faculty of Environmental Management and Agriculture will evaluate the properties of fertilizers in the university fields in Bałcyny near Ostróda. Wheat will be used in the experiments. Dr. Magdalena Jastrzębska and her team will investigate the morphological characteristics of wheat, including stem height, spike length, grain weight, resistance to lodging and weeds, chemical properties, quantity and quality of post-harvest residues. Researchers from Kortowo will also test the soil in which the wheat will grow.

According to the project assumptions, phosphoric fertilizer derived from sewage sludge should be cheaper than traditional fertilizer, because only then it will raise interest on the market. An absolute priority for the whole team is to implement new technology into mass production.

"All of us: chemists, engineers who can build laboratory facilities and agricultural chemistry, we all want to bring this project to an industrial scale. For now, we are preparing production only in laboratory conditions. Fertilizers produced in reactors are being prepare for the first tests in micro fields. We are entering the phase, in which we will check in practice whether our fertilizer is effective for agriculture. If our concept checks out, the Fertilizer Research Institute will carry out tests on a larger scale" - said Prof. Górecki.

The Institute has a branch near Wrocław. Currently, the experts produce suspension fertilizers in local reactors. The reactions are also carried out directly in the soil, using the products of combustion of sewage sludge from incineration plant in Olsztyn.

Prof. Gorecki has developed and implemented many new technologies and products in the fertilizer, inorganic, household industries and agriculture. For 40 years he has conducted scientific work at the Institute of Inorganic Technology and Mineral Fertilizers, Wrocław University of Technology. He is careful about premature investment in the patent process.

"Patenting must have economic grounds. It is also important to find a business partner to implement the results of our research. We assume commercialisation, because although there have already been similar laboratory efforts abroad, in Poland thanks to the sponsorship of research by the National Research and Development Centre , we have the advantage, that the project will be conducted on a large scale right away and for the first time" - concluded Prof. Górecki.

PAP - Science and Scholarship in Poland, Karolina Olszewska

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