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Evaluation of phosphorus in thermally converted sewage sludge: P pools and availability to wheat

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Abstract

Aims

Dried sewage sludge (SS) and the by-products of four SS thermal conversion processes (pyrolysis, incineration and two types of gasification) were investigated for phosphorus (P) availability.

Methods

A sequential extraction was used to determine the distribution of P among different P pools. After mixing materials with soil, availability of the P was determined with soil P extractions and in a growth experiment with wheat.

Results

Thermally converted SS contained a greater proportion of P within recalcitrant pools than dried SS. Despite having very different P pool distributions, the incinerated and dried SS provided similar amounts of P to plants. Plant P supply from dried and incinerated SS was lower than the comparable soluble P treatment (50 mg P kg−1), but higher than a soluble treatment at a lower rate (20 mg P kg−1). Plant P uptake in gasified and pyrolysed treatments was only marginally greater than uptake in a control (no P) treatment. Plant P uptake correlated most closely with diffusive gradients in thin films (DGT) P analysis of soil-material mixes. Phosphorus availability in the dried and incinerated SS treatments increased over time.

Conclusions

We propose that the dried and incinerated SS have potential as slow release P fertilisers in low pH soils.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Lena Byrgesen and Dr Thomas Hansen for their help with chemical analyses of materials, and Nelly Raymond and Katerina Efthymiou for their help in the lab. We would also like to thank Dr Ronald Smernik for his feedback on the original manuscript, and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable advice. This research was funded by the Grains Research and Development Corporation via a Grains Industry Research Scholarship (GRS10686) to JEM and funding from the ARC to TRC (FT120100463). JEM would also like to acknowledge support through an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship. Two travel grants were awarded to JEM to travel to Denmark to undertake this research, one from the Plant Nutrition Trust and one from the University of Adelaide.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Waite Research Institute and School of Agriculture, Food and Wine, University of Adelaide, Waite Campus, Glen Osmond, SA, 5064, Australia

    Jessica E. Mackay, Timothy R. Cavagnaro & Lynne M. Macdonald

  2. Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Plant and Soil Science, University of Copenhagen, Thorvaldsensvej 40, Frederiksberg, Denmark

    Iver Jakobsen, Mette Grønlund & Dorette S. Müller-Stöver

  3. CSIRO Agriculture and Food, Waite Campus, Glen Osmond, SA, 5064, Australia

    Lynne M. Macdonald

  4. Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Frederiksborgvej 399, Roskilde, Denmark

    Tobias P. Thomsen

Authors
  1. Jessica E. Mackay
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  2. Timothy R. Cavagnaro
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  3. Iver Jakobsen
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  4. Lynne M. Macdonald
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  6. Tobias P. Thomsen
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  7. Dorette S. Müller-Stöver
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Correspondence to Jessica E. Mackay.

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Responsible Editor: John Hammond.

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Mackay, J.E., Cavagnaro, T.R., Jakobsen, I. et al. Evaluation of phosphorus in thermally converted sewage sludge: P pools and availability to wheat. Plant Soil 418, 307–317 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-017-3298-6

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