Recovered phosphorus for a more resilient urban agriculture : assessment of the fertilizer potential of struvite in hydroponics

Arcas Pilz, Verónica; Rufí Salís, Martí; Parada, Felipe; Petit Boix, Anna; Gabarrell Durany, Xavier; Villalba, Gara

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.149424

Cita bibliográfica -- Enlace permanente: https://ddd.uab.cat/record/248799

Web of Science: 36 citas, Scopus: 40 citas, Google Scholar: citas,

Recovered phosphorus for a more resilient urban agriculture : assessment of the fertilizer potential of struvite in hydroponics
Arcas Pilz, Verónica

(Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)
Rufí Salís, Martí

(Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)
Parada, Felipe

(Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)
Petit Boix, Anna

(University of Freiburg. Chair of Societal Transition and Circular Economy)
Gabarrell Durany, Xavier

(Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)
Villalba, Gara

(Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament d'Enginyeria Química, Biològica i Ambiental)

Fecha:	2021
Resumen:	Urban agriculture (UA) is a means for cities to become more resilient in terms of food sovereignty while shortening the distance between production and consumption. However, intensive soilless UA still depends on the use of fertilizers, which relies on depleting non-renewable resources such as phosphorous (P) and causes both local and global impact for its production and application. With the aim to reduce such impacts and encourage a more efficient use of nutrients, this study assesses the feasibility of using struvite precipitated from an urban wastewater treatment plant as the unique source of P fertilizer. To do so, we apply various quantities of struvite (ranging from 1 to 20 g/plant) to the substrate of a hydroponic Phaseolus vulgaris crop and determine the yield, water flows and P balances. The results show that treatments with more than 5g of struvite per plant produced a higher yield (maximum of 181. 41 g/plant) than the control (134. 6 g/plant) with mineral fertilizer (KPO4H2). On the other hand, P concentration in all plant organs was always lower when using struvite than when using chemical fertilizer. Finally, the fact that different amounts of struvite remained undissolved in all treatments denotes the importance to balance between a correct P supply to the plant and a decrease of P lost through the leachates, based on the amount of struvite and the irrigated water. The findings of this study show that it is feasible for UA to efficiently use locally recovered nutrients such as P to produce local food.
Ayudas:	European Commission 862663 European Commission 818002 Agencia Estatal de Investigación CTM2016-75772-C3-1-R Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad MDM-2015-0552 Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2020/PANDE-00021
Nota:	Altres ajuts: acords transformatius de la UAB
Nota:	Altres ajuts: the authors are grateful to Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona for awarding a research scholarship to M. Rufí-Salís (PIF-UAB 2017), to the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (Spain) for the grant awarded to V. Arcas-Pilz (FPI-MINECO 2018), and to the National Commission for Scientific and Technological Research (Chile) for the grant awarded to F. Parada (PFCHA-CONICYT 2018 - Folio 72180248). A. Petit-Boix thanks the German Federal Ministry of Educa-tion and Research for thefinancial support of the research group "Circulus - Opportunities and challenges of transition to a sustainablecircular bio-economy", grant number 031B0018.
Nota:	Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2019-000940-M
Derechos:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, i la comunicació pública de l'obra, sempre que no sigui amb finalitats comercials, i sempre que es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original. No es permet la creació d'obres derivades.
Lengua:	Anglès
Documento:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Materia:	Phosphorus ; Struvite ; Fertilizer substitution ; Circular economy ; Industrial ecology ; Urban agriculture
Publicado en:	Science of the total environment, Vol. 799 (Dec. 2021) , art. 140424, ISSN 1879-1026