Phosphorus is a vital component of fertilisers – and a growing global population relies on a stable supply of agricultural produce. Endeavours to recycle phosphates from sewage sludge ash (SSA) have so far been limited by lacking understanding of material associations and the actual phosphate compounds in SSA. Owed to the high amorphous content of ashes, unlike X-ray diffractometry (XRD), automated mineralogy systems (MLA here) allow for a deeper study of phosphate-bearing phase associations in ashes. An intricate knowledge of target resource association is crucial for efficient recycling: this applies to all target products, elemental P, phosphoric acid or recycled fertiliser. Failing to understand these morphologies and target associations will inevitably lead to inefficient processes – perhaps even close off this resource completely. Thus, phase studies add to all P-recovery approaches from sewage sludge ashes. Sludge of three German cities has been incinerated under the same conditions and sampled, thus enabling an analysis of ash characteristics.

磷是肥料的重要组成部分——不断增长的全球人口依赖于稳定的农产品供应。迄今为止，由于缺乏对 SSA 中的物质关联和实际磷酸盐化合物的了解，从污水污泥灰分 (SSA) 中回收磷酸盐的努力受到了限制。由于灰分的高无定形含量，与 X 射线衍射仪 (XRD) 不同，自动化矿物学系统（此处为 MLA）允许对灰分中含磷酸盐的相组合进行更深入的研究。目标资源关联的复杂知识对于有效回收至关重要：这适用于所有目标产品、元素磷、磷酸或回收肥料。不了解这些形态和目标关联将不可避免地导致低效流程——甚至可能完全关闭该资源。因此，相研究增加了所有从污水污泥灰烬中回收磷的方法。三个德国城市的污泥在相同条件下被焚烧并取样，从而能够分析灰分特征。