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The plant availability of phosphorus from thermo-chemically treated sewage sludge ashes as studied by 33P labeling techniques

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Abstract

Aims

Phosphorus resources have to be managed sustainably and therefore the recycling of P from waste streams is essential. A thermo-chemical recycling process has been developed to produce a P fertilizer from sewage sludge ash (SSA) but its plant availability is unknown.

Methods

Two SSA products prepared with either CaCl2 (SSACa) or MgCl2 (SSAMg) as chemical reactant during the thermal treatment were mixed with three soils previously labeled with 33P. Reference treatments with water-soluble P added at equal amounts of total P were included. The transfer of P from SSACa and SSAMg to Lolium multiflorum or P pools of sequentially extracted soil-fertilizer incubations were quantified.

Results

The shoot P uptake from SSAMg was higher than from SSACa. For SSAMg the relative effectiveness compared to a water-soluble P fertilizer was 88 % on an acidic and 71 % on a neutral soil but only 4 % on an alkaline soil. The proportion of P derived from the fertilizer in the plant and in the first two extraction pools of soil-fertilizer incubations were strongly correlated, suggesting that it is sufficient to conduct an incubation study to obtain robust information on plant P availability.

Conclusions

We conclude that under acidic to neutral conditions SSAMg presents an appropriate alternative to conventional P fertilizers and the dissolution of P from SSAMg seems to be governed by protons and cations in the soil solution.

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Abbreviations

SSA:

Sewage sludge ash

SA:

Specific activity

Pdf seed:

P derived from the seed

Pdf fertilizer:

P derived from the fertilizer

Pdf soil:

P derived from the soil

Pupt:

Shoot P uptake

FertPRec:

Fertilizer P recovery

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Acknowledgments

We gratefully thank Recycling, Entsorgung, Abwasser Lucerne (REAL) for providing the raw ashes and J. Casparin, P. Herk and H. Mattenberger (ASH DEC Umwelt AG) for the technical guidance during the preparation of thermo-chemically treated SSA. We thank T. Flura (ETH Zurich) for assistance in analytics and U. Eggenberger and C. Lemp (University of Berne) for XRD analyses. We acknowledge F. Liebisch (ETH Zurich), the anonymous reviewers and Prof. N. J. Barrow (The University of Western Australia) for their helpful comments on our script. The project was funded by the Swiss Federal Commission for Technology and Innovation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Group of Plant Nutrition, ETH Zurich, Research Station Eschikon, Eschikon 33, 8315, Lindau, Switzerland

    Simone Nanzer, Astrid Oberson, Leslie Berger & Emmanuel Frossard

  2. Soil Sciences Division, Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL), Frick, Switzerland

    Estelle Berset

  3. Outotec GmbH, Oberursel, Germany

    Ludwig Hermann

Authors
  1. Simone Nanzer
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  2. Astrid Oberson
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  3. Leslie Berger
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  4. Estelle Berset
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  5. Ludwig Hermann
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  6. Emmanuel Frossard
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Correspondence to Simone Nanzer.

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Responsible Editor: N. Jim Barrow.

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Nanzer, S., Oberson, A., Berger, L. et al. The plant availability of phosphorus from thermo-chemically treated sewage sludge ashes as studied by 33P labeling techniques. Plant Soil 377, 439–456 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-013-1968-6

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