Demonstration of the efficiency of a nutrient concentrator

• Total project budget: 29,983.75€

• Start Date: 22/03/2019

  End Date: 30/09/2020

Project Summary: 

Livestock manure is characterized by a high content of water (85-95%) and nutrients (mainly phosphorus and nitrogen). Their application to the soil makes them suitable fertilizers to return these nutrients to the soil, thus preventing the proliferation of desertified areas in the territory, but their high-water content makes their transport to soils with a lack of nutrients very expensive and inefficient. The main objective of the project is to reduce the costs of managing livestock manure by applying a new process from which the slurry from the farm is separated into two phases. A first semi-liquid phase where most of the organic matter is concentrated, and nutrients and reduce their water content to make their export economically viable to territories in need of nutrients, and a second, more dilute liquid phase that can be applied to soils close to the territory where they are generated. 

Our role in the project: 

The BETA Technology Center is responsible for demonstrating the viability of innovative technology, developed jointly with the Cooperativa Plana de Vic and Grup Solucions de Manresa, to carry out the effective concentration of slurry nutrients, at a low cost, without additional emissions and with minimal energy consumption. In this way, it will be possible to reduce transport costs and make the export of nutrients economically viable. This Demonstration Activity aims to demonstrate the applicability of this technology to other types of slurry (fattening), validate it in other mothers’ farms and be able to have a manual and operating protocol that, in the first place, allows distribute information effectively to farmers and secondly to promote and facilitate its acceptance and application by the livestock sector.

Project funded through Operation 16.01.01 (Cooperation for Innovation) through the Rural Development Program of Catalonia 2014-2020.

Order ARP / 133/2017, of 21 June, approving the regulatory bases for aid for cooperation for innovation through the promotion of the creation of operational groups of the European Association for Innovation in matter of agricultural productivity and sustainability and the realization of innovative pilot projects by part of these groups, and Resolution ARP / 1531/2019, of 28 May, by which summons the mentioned help.