Phosphorus (P) is an essential and at the same time critical resource, as there are barely any available reserves in the European Union, which means that there is a dependence on imports from non-EU countries. In these countries, there are critical working and environmental conditions for which social responsibility must be taken. To address these challenges, municipal sewage sludge has to be utilized since it has a huge potential to produce sustainable P- fertilizers. Hydrothermal Carbonization (HTC) is an energy-improved treatment of sewage sludge and enhances the dewatering properties. The remaining process water contains a significant nutrient content, especially nitrogen (N) and phosphorous (P). For a future project, the recovery potential of P was investigated for Germany, Austria and Switzerland (DACH region). The forecasted P recovery potential in the DACH region until 2030 covers 25% of the annual P demand and the environmental impact due to the conventional industrial production of P fertilizer could be reduced dramatically (up to 63 t of CO2 emissions can be saved per year). To identify the sustainable development goals (SDGs) which are primarily addressed by the project, the following question was formulated: What effects does the technology have in terms of sustainability (social, ecological, economic)? The investigation showed that SDGs 8, 11, 12, and 13 are mainly focused. The investigations serve as a basis for a future project, which is shortly introduced in this work, where the nutrients, as well as heavy metals, will be recovered by an innovative combination of three novel processes.
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