Sewage sludge treatment by hydrothermal carbonization : feasibility study for sustainable nutrient recovery and fuel production

Phosphorus recovery from waste biomass is becoming increasingly important, given that phosphorus is an exhaustible non-renewable resource. For the recovery of plant nutrients and production of climate-neutral fuel from wet waste streams, hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) has been suggested as a promising technology. In this study, digested sewage sludge (DSS) was used as waste material for phosphorus and nitrogen recovery. HTC was conducted at 200 °C for 4 h, followed by phosphorus stripping (PS) or leaching (PL) at room temperature. The results showed that for PS and PL around 84% and 71% of phosphorus, as well as 53% and 54% of nitrogen, respectively, could be recovered in the liquid phase (process water and/or extract). Heavy metals were mainly transferred to the hydrochar and only