ESNI 2019
The ESNI (European Sustainable Nutrient Initiative) conference was organized by UGent under the umbrella of the Biorefine Cluster Europe, a network of projects working on bio–based recovery. In the first edition of ESNI held on 22 January 2019 in Brussels, around 150 researchers, farmers, policy–makers, industry representatives and other stakeholders came together to discuss and share information.
The session of NUTRIMAN workshop focused on the comprehensive overview of European market-ready innovative nutrient recovery technologies and products. The project coordinator Edward Someus gave a detailed introduction to the NUTRIMAN project including objectives, methodology, consortium and activities. As showcases for N and P recovery, Christophe Boogaerts from VLACO presented the status of compost and digestate products in Flanders as well as the NPirriK process as an improved digestate post-treatment; Edward Someus from 3R-BioPhosphate Ltd. highlighted the value of bio-phosphate recovered via “3R” P-recovery technology. Afterwards, Jean-Philippe Bernard from CA17 provided practical experiences of using NUTRIMAN Farmer Platform, national workshops, training sessions and opening days to disseminate potential NUTRIMAN solutions to stakeholders, including farmers. Participants showed high interest in the project by raising various questions covering technical, economic, environmental and political aspects. With the active Q&A section, the NUTRIMAN workshop at ESNI 2019 conference had successfully helped to support the knowledge expansion of nutrient recovery and reuse in Europe.
