Recovery of nutrients from concentrated liquid waste streams

Abstract

Anaerobic digestion is a key technology for the treatment of organic waste streams and is used worldwide to treat domestic wastewater for the production of biogas. Alongside biogas, digestate is produced after anaerobic digestion process which is rich in organic matter, nutrients such as phosphorus, nitrogen, potassium and other micronutrients and therefore have great potential to be used as organic fertilizer. Production of biogas and recovery of nutrients from wastewater can promote the circular economy, reduce waste water treatment environmental footprint and minimize the anthropogenic inflow of nitrogen and phosphorus into the environment.