Dynamic ammonium retention for nutrient separation from manure digestate

Extensive nitrogen emissions with negative impact on nature and the environment urge effective valorization of manure and fractionation of nutrients to enable precision fertilization. Typically, manure is fed to a digester to produce biogas. The remaining digestate is then mechanically separated into a solid phosphorous-rich fraction and a liquid fraction containing both NH₄⁺ and K. These ions are difficult to separate due to their very identical size and charge. We show that with smart tuning of the pH to control the NH₃/NH₄⁺ equilibrium, membranes can produce dedicated N and K-rich streams. The increased pH switches the equilibrium towards the neutrally charged solute NH₃ that permeates more easily through the membrane than charged NH₄⁺ and K⁺ ions. Experiments with both artificial NH₄Cl/KCl mixtures as well as real liquid digestate and four different membrane types, ranging from open nanofiltration (NF) to sea water reverse osmosis (RO) membranes were performed. At neutral pH, no N/K selectivity was observed, not for single components nor for mixtures. When the pH was increased towards alkaline environment, distinct selectivity for N/K was obtained both with model solutions and real liquid digestate. At a suitable pH of 10, with >80 % of the total ammonia present as NH₃, the RO BW membrane showed a large N/K selectivity of 35 in the crossflow system. Additional RO steps at low pH allows subsequent concentration of the formed NH₄⁺ and K⁺ fractions. The presented dynamic pH approach proofs that in a two-step RO system both N, and K-enriched fertilizers can be produced from real liquid digestate.