PHOSPHORUS RECOVERY
Technically speaking, there is only one growth industry. And it has been around for 3.9 billion years
Phosphorus is an essential nutrient for all living organisms on Earth. There is, therefore, a great demand for this substance. Huge volumes of phosphorus are needed in Europe alone every single year – as a source material for products such as fertilisers and animal feed. Which means the search is on for innovations that are up to the challenge of recovering this substance.
Would you have known? Life is impossible without phosphorus
Be honest: if you were asked, on the spur of the moment, to put together a list of resources that are essential for our life on Earth, would you have added phosphorus? Probably not. And yet phosphorus plays a vital role when it comes to biological growth and energy metabolism. Indeed, it is true to say: no phosphorus – no life. Which makes it all the more problematic that resources of this vital substance are becoming scarce on our planet. What's more, the global resources that we do have are found in just a few countries. Practically all of Europe's phosphorus must be imported and the quality of the raw material is gradually deteriorating as it contains an ever growing amount of pollutants. Innovative processes are needed, therefore, to recover and recycle phosphorus to reduce our dependency on imports. REMONDIS has them – and is a true pioneer in this field.
Phosphorus is a vital nutrient for all living organisms and is essential for their growth
Pioneering patented processes for recovering phosphorus
There is a type of waste that is produced all around the world and contains large volumes of phosphate: sewage sludge. As the name implies, sewage sludge is produced at sewage treatment plants as part of their wastewater treatment processes. In fact, to be precise, this is what is left over after the wastewater has been treated. REMONDIS was one of the very first companies to recognise the potential of sewage sludge as a source of raw materials and developed its TetraPhos® process to recover the phosphorus many years ago. The material used for this process is sewage sludge ash, the residue produced by the thermal treatment of the sewage sludge. This is mixed with phosphoric acid which is enriched with the phosphate in the ash. The phosphoric acid produced by this process is extremely pure and does not contain any heavy metals – unlike the raw material from natural resources. There are no restrictions as to how it may be used by industrial businesses. It is ideal, for example, for producing fertiliser and corrosion inhibitors.
We won the GreenTec Award back in 2016 for our TetraPhos® system
Practising sustainability ahead of the times: all large sewage treatment plants in Germany will have to recover their phosphorus from 2029 onwards – something we have been doing for many years now.
Conserving natural resources, curbing climate change
While others began looking into the subject of phosphorus recovery in detail, we had already done our homework and were way ahead of them. We have been operating the first ever large-scale phosphorus recovery facility since 2021 as part of our public private partnership with the City of Hamburg. The sooner that phosphorus is recovered on an industrial scale, the better. In Hamburg alone, we are able to produce 7,000 tonnes of highly pure phosphoric acid from the 20,000 tonnes of sewage sludge ash every year. And this is just the beginning as recovering phosphorus has huge potential. Also – and above all – for curbing climate change.
If all the sewage sludge produced in Germany each year were to be fed into the TetraPhos® process, it would have the equivalent CO2-compensating effect of 27 million trees.
The reason: the phosphoric acid (called REPACID®) produced by the TetraPhos® process has a 60% better environmental footprint than phosphoric acid that has to be imported as a virgin raw material.
A look inside the TetraPhos® plant in Hamburg
A TetraPhos® by-product: greater sustainability
The TetraPhos® process truly is recycling at its best. It is like a puzzle piece that fits perfectly into the chain of wastewater treatment, thermal treatment and phosphorus recovery. A sustainable system that fully closes the material life cycle of phosphorus for the very first time. But that’s not all: TetraPhos® does even more. Besides producing the phosphoric acid REPACID®, which is of a much higher quality than the natural raw material, it also generates gypsum from the ash, which can be used by the building supplies trade, as well as iron and aluminium salts. The latter can be used, for example, as a precipitating agent to treat wastewater.
For smartphones and tablets: discover TetraPhos® as a virtual, 3D experience
Immerse yourself in the world of phosphorus recovery with our app and downloadable graphic.
Three simple steps:
Download and open the PDF with the graphic of the plant
Start the app and scan the points on the graphic
Leading the way in Aquatic Mining
REPHOS®, another process developed by our company, can do for industry what TetraPhos® does for municipal sewage treatment plants. Depending on the sector, industrial wastewater can also contain phosphorus. Having said that, though, the volumes of water are lower and the composition is often very heterogeneous. Thanks to our customised REPHOS® technology, the phosphorus is removed and recovered straight from the wastewater as magnesium-ammonium-phosphate (MAP). In principle, we were one of the first companies worldwide to see wastewater not as a matter of waste management but as a valuable source of raw materials. Indeed, you could say that we were carrying out Aquatic Mining long before the term ever existed. And we continue to see ourselves as pioneers in this field. Aquatic Mining still has so much potential. We are bound to come up with our next innovation soon.
We supply the phosphorus that we recover from industrial wastewater as salt – as so-called struvite.
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