Marrit van der Wal

The agricultural sector likes to contribute to the societal challenges of limiting nitrogen and (climate driven) CO2 emissions into the atmosphere. In addition, the agricultural sector wishes to valorize its liquid manure streams by producing high concentrated mineral concentrates next to high concentrated nitrogen (N) and potassium (K) fractions. Analysis has shown that a restriction in liquid manure utilization lies in the nitrogen and potassium balance, as this ratio does not meet the requirements for optimal plant growth which limits the use of animal manure mineral concentrates. This project focuses on improving methods to produce highly concentrated mineral concentrates and on the development of manure treatment processes for the production of mineral concentrates rich in N or K. Ultimately this would result in the opportunity to mix the N and K species in the desired ratio thus producing high value precision fertilizers. Advantageously, this would reduce the nitrogen and CO2 emission into the atmosphere.