Phosphorus from major Russian chicken farms leaking into the Baltic Sea, where it contributes to eutrophication. Swedish environmental technology can solve the problem. This summer is a pilot plant in operation.
Udarnik outside Sankt Peterburg hatch every year 1 million chickens. Their manure carted off to the big field where it is dumped in the open. The result is that large amounts of phosphorus leaking into ground and surface waters to end up in the Baltic Sea – where it contributes to eutrophication. But things are about to change that. With the help of four million from Finnish John Nurminen Foundation builds the Swedish environmental technology company Bioptech a treatment plant at the site, who have no access to electricity.
– Just around St. Petersburg has dozens of livestock farms that do not handle animal feces. This affects our common sea and is therefore a common cause. With this project we want to show that there are opportunities to act, says Anders Noren, CEO of Bioptech.
The company is a spin-off from KTH and manufactures a filtermassa- Polonite – of the porous rock Opoka. Mining takes place in open pit mining in Poland. The idea is that runoff water will drain through the filter of Polonite where rapids ancient bound. By utilizing a natural gravity, the process must be done without electricity.
– After the industrial processing becomes Opoka a perfect phosphorus-binding material. Phosphorus can then be returned to the fields in a form that is readily taken up by crops, says Gunno Renman, professor of soil and water engineering at KTH.
Gunno Renman knows what he’s talking about. Over the years, he has tested some 30 phosphorus-binding material where Polonite so far is superior. The hunt for the perfect material, he began in the mid-1990s when the then government presented its orbit bill.
How did you come to rock Opoka?
– I had maybe a little luck. But it said “click” when I encountered it.
Gunno Renman notes that the porous material only consists only of lime and silica. And that after the industrial treatment he developed becomes very reactive phosphorus.
– It is a relatively young material, it was formed 65 million years ago when dinosaurs walked the earth, he says.
Is there not a risk that drug residues and chemicals comes out on the fields?
– It is a very oxidative environment in the filters where much of the carbon chains may break up. Now there are data suggesting that technology can be an alternative to charcoal filters for smaller treatment plants. We also have tests on time, together with environmental chemists in Uppsala and SLU.
A high pH of the material also means that bacteria and viruses are broken down, without, for example, need to take to UV light.
Marjukka Porvari is the project of the John Nurminen Foundation, which funds the project.
– We invest in projects that produce measurable results in terms of reducing the nutrient load in the Baltic Sea. This is the first concrete project in the Gulf of Finland to prevent emissions from Russian risk animal farms, she says.
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