The European Sustainable Phosphorus Conference (ESPC) and the Phosphorus in Europe Research Meeting (PERM) are unique events, bringing together companies, stakeholders, researchers, regional and national authorities to discuss sustainable phosphorus actions and policies.
In June 2022, 400 attendees from all over the globe met in beautiful Vienna to exchange knowledge about phosphorus and connect to potential business or research partners. For the FlashPhos consortium Sander Arnout (InsPyro), Matthias Rapf (University of Stuttgart) and Lukas Pohl (University of Stuttgart) travelled to Vienna and functioned as representatives of the 17 project partners and of the idea of producing white phosphorus out of exclusively waste streams with the FlashPhos technology.
Knowledge exchange on phosphorus recovery
At ESPC4, Matthias Rapf and Lukas Pohl had the opportunity to present to a large audience the FlashPhos business vision including its impact until 2040 and the first project results. At PERM5, Sander Arnout from InsPyro gave a talk on the thermal behaviour of sewage sludge for white phosphorus recovery, and Lukas presented the FlashPhos process in reference to critical resources and zero waste from sewage sludge.
During the conference, it was particularly helpful to hear the sessions about the interactions of iron in phosphorus recovery, which disturb FlashPhos like all P-recovery processes. And since FlashPhos processes sludge minerals in the refining step, discussions about P-recovery from ashes also gave us valuable information. In this respect, especially the research from Aseel Al Nimer from the Wilfrid Larier University in Canada about factors that influence phosphorus relief from iron-phosphorus-sludges impressed us. In addition, also Theresa Sichler from the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM) in Germany with the project extraWERT helped us to increase our knowledge about reaction mechanisms between these two elements before and after a thermochemical treatment.
Networking to bring FlashPhos Innovations forward
We are grateful to the organizers for providing the ground for a sustainable handling of phosphorus resources by bringing the European and global phosphorus community together. At the conference, we met people from all over the world (Europe, Tasmania, India, Japan, Canada, USA…) and had great exchanges, socially and on business.
Beyond the time of the conference, we are looking forward to an exchange with Takayuki Iwama and Huafang Yu from Tohoku University in Japan, who work on the recovery of white phosphorus from steelmaking slag.
Besides, we appreciated an extensive conversation with Dr. Eva-Maria Leuschner from Clariant AG and anticipate future discussions about the use of high-quality white phosphorus.
And favoured by fortune as we are, we met slag chemistry specialist Dr. Nils Skoglund from Umeå University, who is now a new member of our Advisory Board – welcome Nils!
Event Impressions
For further information contact
Lukas Pohl
University of Stuttgart, Institute for Sanitary Engineering, Water Quality and Solid Waste Management
+49 711 685 63759