PHIGO - Thermal Processing of P-rich ashes aiming for HIGH-GRADE PHOSPHORUS Products

The EU phosphorus requirements are supplied by import from Mideast, Russia and China. Due to its economic importance and supply risk, the European Union included the phosphorus and phosphate rocks (PR) in the “List of critical raw materials (CRM) for the EU”. Phosphorus is also difficult to be substituted. One of the most sustainable options to secure future P supply within EU is recovery of P from food production and consumption chain which is also the EU P strategy. The 1st pillar of the strategy is biowastes incineration which will enrich the P-content by 6-7 times to a P-rich fraction and at the same time produce green energy. The innovative PHIGO solution aims to optimize the incineration step (the 1st pillar of the strategy) and to develop a sustainable technology for efficient P-extraction from the P-rich ashes (the 2nd pillar of the strategy) and thereby enabling closing the P loop in the EU P-strategy. The project will be realized via a cross-discipline approach with experts in incineration processes (University of Ege with industrial actors GURES and INEVA, Turkey), material characterizations and evaluation (University of Porto, Portugal), thermal extraction processes (Swerim, Sweden and University Politehnica of Bucharest, Romania), evaluation of products, processes and zero waste approaches (GIG and PROGEO, Poland) and sustainability assessment (University of Brescia, Italy). The main contributions of the PHIGO to the Strategic Implementation Plan of the European Innovation Partnership on Raw Materials and the ERA-MIN Research Agenda include: - Recovery of critical material (CRM) P and reduced import of another CRM phosphate rock; - A sustainable EU P-strategy to secure the P need and close the P-Loop within EU. The PHIGO solution will also contribute, in the future, to a more secured food supply on a global level as PR is nonrenewable and limited primary resource and P is an indispensable element for the food industry.