Algae turns greedy for phosphorous from effluent

Agriculture must use all it's creative science expertise to solve many of the issues that confront it's industry,as it strives to increase  production in a ever hungry world.

Effluent disposal from intensive agriculture is a negative spin off to producing more food, and must be sorted if we want to exploit our clean green brand used by our marketers.

Recycling waste to sustain the elements in a healthy soil by this novel algae approach looks like an exciting idea, and farmers will be supportive of research funds being directed this way.

We are constanly reminded of the low investment in Research and Development by agriculture, so in these times of strong commodity prices should all product sectors be increasing the levys to fund these projects?

Your views?

Professor Andy Shilton, School of Engineering and Advanced Technology, and his team have the grant from the Marsden Fund managed by the Royal Society reports Rural News. The fund is designed to allow researchers to do 'blue sky', innovative, long term science in particular areas. Phosphorus is of critical strategic importance to New Zealand agriculture and to farming systems around the world, Shilton says. "It's a fundamental element and there is no substitute as there is for, say, fossil fuels.

Conversely, says Shilton, a lot of money is spent trying work out how to get phosphorous out of our effluent discharges to waterways."A common way of removing it is to use chemicals and 'lock' the phosphate up. But chemicals are increasingly expensive and the phosphate captured is hard to recycle. Alternatively, billions of dollars are being invested into building processes that use bacteria to suck up phosphate." But Shilton and his team, Dr Nicola Powell from Massey and Dr April Gu, based in the US, believe there is another way.

"We have found that algae in the simple waste treatment ponds used extensively throughout rural New Zealand can also suck up large quantities of phosphorus from waste water and store it. One of the great things here is that the phosphorus stored inside the algal cells is quite stable which makes it easier to recycle than the bacterial alternative." Internationally, achieving phosphorus removal and recycling from effluent is a huge challenge with many universities worldwide competing to refine the bacterial based technology. Much work remains to be done before a new process can be rolled out in full scale application.

"For this novel algal-based alternative we have the international lead and this Marsden grant gives us the chance to lay the engineering foundation of a new environmental biotechnology developed in New Zealand. "Don't worry about oil: there are substitutes; that's the least of our concerns. The big issue is how much food is available. To make that food our farms need phosphate, and for phosphate there is no substitute once we have let it all be flushed out to sea."