Novel nanotechnology turns water waste into fertilizer

Excessive nutrients in wastewater can lead to detrimental discharges into natural water bodies, prompting harmful algal blooms with severe environmental and economic repercussions.

To address this pressing issue, a team of engineers in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis has developed an innovative solution.

Their novel composite nanotechnology removes and recovers nutrients from wastewater, subsequently upcycling them as agricultural fertilizers or as biorefinery feedstocks while simultaneously mitigating the occurrence of harmful algal blooms.

Young-Shin Jun, a professor of energy, environmental and chemical engineering, and Minkyoung Jung, a doctoral student in her lab, created novel mineral-hydrogel composites that can remove and recover ammonium and phosphate from wastewater.

These composites are embedded with nanoscale struvite and calcium phosphate mineral seeds, which significantly reduce ammonia and phosphate concentrations in wastewater by up to 60% and 91%, respectively. This reduction curbs algal growth and the associated toxins.

Jun highlighted the scalability of the process, with successful trials conducted on up to 20 liters of fluid. The lab is now scaling up to 200 liters.

Image source: Young-Shin Jun.