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SLUDGE TO FERTILIZER

Pinoy scientist details award-winning project


Professor Michael Angelo Promentilla, the leader of team behind the project that won the 2019 Newton Prize Philippines award, talked about the concept of converting sewage water into nutrient-rich fertilizer in an exclusive interview with GMA News Online on Tuesday afternoon.

The De La Salle University professor explained that his team focused on extracting phosphorus — a nutrient found in fertilizers — from wastewater sludge.

According to him, sludge is a muddy mixture of solid and liquid components, and it is a by-product of wastewater treatment.

Promentilla and his team first decided to hydrolize the sludge, or make the sludge chemically react with water.

"Pagkatapos ma-filter, mag-a-add ka ng reagents, mag-aadd ka ng chemicals para magprecipitate [ang phosphorus], para magform ng crystals," he said.

The crystals are called magnesium-ammonium-phosphate or struvite.

"'Yung struvite is a slow-release fertilizer. It is unlike fast-releasing commercial fertilizers, kung saan nagagamit lang ng plants is about ten percent [of the nutrients in the fertilizer]," Promentilla explained.

According to him, his team was able to extract struvite from wastewater but they are still in the process of "perfecting the process."

He admitted that there were still impurities during the extraction process, but they are also looking at whether they would be useful in providing nutrients to plants.

As a result of winning the coveted 2019 Newton Prize Philippines award, Promentilla and his team received funding amounting to £ 200,000 (or Php 13.2M).

 

 

 

The Newton Prize celebrated the best collaborative projects between scientists from the UK and those from Newton countries such as the Philippines. —LDF, GMA News

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