Due to climate change and its’ drastic effects, such as drought, and also the turmoil of production factor markets for primary producers, the demand of recycled nutrients and reuse of water has strongly increased. The ReNuW-Hubs (Reuse of Nutrients and Water from Human based sludge) project improves nutrient (phosphorus and nitrogen) recycling and water reuse from community wastewater.
Recycling of nutrients and water is one of the key policies of the European Union. Commonly, the nutrient recovery is done from treated suspended solids of wastewater and in large scale centralized units, which leads to lower level of nutrient recovery.
ReNuW-Hubs project aims at improving the recycling of nutrients (phosphorous and nitrogen) and reuse of water from community wastewater including human based sludge. This is done with a physico-chemical wastewater treatment process operated in a mobile wastewater treatment device (MWWTD), which is built inside of a 20 feet long sea container.
The mobile technology offers a flexible solution for remote areas that lack adequate wastewater treatment capacity due to high seasonal variation in wastewater generation - for example, popular tourism destinations.
“VTT's role in the project is to carry out wastewater treatment and nutrient recovery using the mobile MWWTD. The wastewater treatment and nutrient recovery concept will be developed and validated at laboratory scale before being piloted in the Turku Archipelago,” says Senior Scientist Antti Grönroos from VTT.
To improve recycling of nutrients and reuse of water, several development steps are needed – starting from finalizing the technical functionality and efficiency of the MWWTD, and ending to increased and more common use of recycled nutrients and reused water for irrigation by local farmers, horticultural entrepreneurs and municipality gardening departments.
ReNuW-Hubs project develops and promotes the use of a small-scale mobile wastewater treatment system, which increases the level of nutrient recovery substantially when the nutrients are recovered already in the treatment process. It also provides reclaimed water for irrigation and solids for hydro-char.
The project also investigates the barriers and potentials of using recycled nutrients and reuse of water among the end-users. This is done through futures processes (with such methods as Delfoi, Horizon scanning and PESTEV), and through Economic Cost-Benefit analysis, together with mapping of end-user attitudes and preferences.
In addition, customer discovery interviews and potential product-market fit evaluation with the end-users will be implemented as well.
ReNuW-Hubs project will strengthen cooperation among research institutes, municipalities, and businesses, providing an opportunity to test new technologies under practical conditions and to promote sustainable water management solutions throughout Central Baltic Sea region.
A three-year international collaboration project
The ReNuW-Hubs project is implemented by a consortium with partners from Finland, Latvia and Estonia and coordinated by Finland Futures Research Centre at the University of Turku. Project partners include Keep Archipelago Tidy Association, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd., University of Latvia, Latvian University of Life Sciences and Technology, and Estonian University of Life Sciences.
The project, funded by the EU's Interreg Central Baltic program, lasts for three years starting from May 2025, with a budget of €2.08 million, of which the EU funding share is €1.67 million.
More details on the project webpage: https://centralbaltic.eu/project/renuw-hubs/
