INTRODUCTION
In the Netherlands as well as in Flanders, extensive manure surpluses are generated every year in livestock farming. These manure surpluses are partly exported to neighboring countries. At the same time, farmers in the Netherlands and Flanders have to purchase large quantities of expensive mineral fertilizers every year.
The Interreg project "NITROMAN" wants to investigate in the Flemish-Dutch border region whether mineral fertilizers can be extracted from the available manure surpluses. This would allow surplus manure from local livestock farms to be processed on site into fertilizers for agriculture. The project focuses on the processing of liquid manure fraction from pig and cattle manure. NITROMAN wants to recover significant amounts of nitrogen, potassium and water from this liquid fertilizer fraction using two innovative techniques. Nitrogen and potassium can then be used as fertilizers in agriculture. The project NITROMAN is named after the Latin "nitrogenium".
The video below gives a nice introduction to the NITROMAN project.
PROJECT GOALS
Pilot installations will be installed at a number of livestock farms spread across the border region. NITROMAN will also develop a calculation tool. Companies can use this to calculate whether circular manure processing is feasible, and if so, which of the two techniques offers them the most benefit. The knowledge collected will be widely distributed to the agricultural sector. In addition, interested companies will be able to attend demonstrations so that they can get to know the benefits of circular manure processing up close.
Detricon provides the stripping/scrubbing technology for this project. Learn more about this technology in the following video:
RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS
Within the Nitroman project, it is investigated whether recycled fertilizers can serve as a replacement for artificial fertilizers, and this with the upcoming Safemanure legislation in mind. The four living lab centers within the Nitroman project have carried out these fertilization tests on maize, grass, spinach, celery and potatoes. On December 3, 2020, Nitroman organized a webinar about the field trial results within the Nitroman project. Learn about the fertilization results of ammonium sulfate, ammonium nitrate and mineral concentrate compared to animal fertilizers and fertilizers by watching the recorded webinar below.
All project results on the tested technologies, recovered fertilizers, and field trial results can be found through the main project page.
OUR PARTNERS
SUPPORTED BY
FUNDING
NITROMAN is a project funded within the Interreg V program Flanders-Netherlands, the cross-border cooperation program with financial support from the European Regional Development Fund.
