Studies Explore Changing Wastewater into Fertilizer
New studies are exploring whether using organic waste to make fertilizers could help promote sustainable production and decrease fossil fuel consumption. One of the studies, by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, focused on using a fungal treatment to make fertilizer from leftover wastewater for agricultural crops. The researchers were using a process known as hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL), which makes biocrude oil from biomass via a high-pressure, high-temperature process. Paul Davidson, an associate professor in the university’s agricultural and biological engineering department, stated that the process through which HTL uses wet biomass from organic sources, such as food waste or swine…
