Vivimag

Process & contact

ViviMag^® (Kemira)

Members of ESPP

Website: Award-winning breakthrough in phosphorus recovery - Kemira

Contacts: 

Updated 5/2023

Input materials

Sewage sludge digestate, before dewatering, from WWTP using iron salts for chemical P removal

Output products

Product: vivianite (iron(II) phosphate).

Can be used as an iron fertiliser. Or possibility to process to PK fertiliser and iron coagulants for use in WWTPs

Process description

Precipitation of iron phosphate in the form of vivianite, by reducing iron(III) to iron(II) in anaerobic conditions (digester), then recovery of the vivianite by magnetic separation. Vivianite can be used as an Fe fertilizer to treat Fe-chlorosis of for instance olive treas. Optional extraction of P from vivianite to liquid PK fertiliser and recycle iron as coagulant to WWTP

Operating status

Manual 1 m³/h pilot for magnetic separation of vivianite tested at Nieuwveer WWTP, NL (2019).

Automatic 1 m³/h pilot (photo) currently in operation, with continuous trials in Germany (2022), Denmark (first half of 2023) and the Netherlands.