Sustainable airport cities closing the phosphorus cycle at Amsterdam airport Schiphol in the Netherlands

“The recovery and reuse of phosphorus is a matter of great importance, especially for Europe, because of depletion of phosphate-rock and geo-political issues. The goal of this Dutch Water Top Sector (TKI) project was twofold: promote corporate social responsibility between aviation and water sector and use innovative technology for phosphorus recovery from wastewater with the application of recovered phosphorus locally as a fertiliser. Phosphorus was recovered by crystallisation with added magnesium and ammonium (present in wastewater streams) as high quality struvite granules (MgNH4PO4.6H2O) in a pilot installation (10 m3/h) at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol in The Netherlands. The recovery potential for this wastewater treatment plant is about 11 kg P per day of struvite, based on 75% efficiency. The quality of the produced struvite has been analysed. The produced struvite can replace artificial fertiliser, because it
complies with the new legislation in the Netherlands, which allows use of recovered phosphorus from wastewater since 1 January 2015. This project shows that recovered phosphorus can be reused, e.g. direct local application, as a fertiliser, contributing to a reduction of the environmental footprint of the operations at, in this case, Amsterdam Airport Schiphol.”

(Citaat: Roest, K., Graaff, M.S. de, et al. – Sustainable airport cities closing the phosphorus cycle at Amsterdam airport Schiphol in the Netherlands – Water & Wastewater Asia (2015)May/June, p.23-25)