SUSKULT

Project duration: 04/2019 - 12/2024

Processed by: rewa

Persons in charge: Sica Liesegang M.Sc., Dipl.Ing. Almut Hönerloh, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Heidrun Steinmetz

Funding: BMBF (German Federal Ministry of Education and Research)

Project partners:

Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental, Safety, and Energy Technology UMSICHT

Blue Foot Membranes GmbH

German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence GmbH

Emschergenossenschaft/Lippeverband

Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research UFZ

Osnabrück University of Applied Sciences

ILS-Research Institute for Regional and Urban Developement

Justus-Liebig-University Gießen

Metro AG

Montanuniversität Leoben

PACELUM GmbH

Rewe Market GmbH

Ruhrverband

Yara GmbH & Co. KG

One central question in nutrition sector is how increasing quality and sustainability of nutrition are compatible with increasing yields in agriculture and associated side effects such as high-energy requirements in fertilizer production, impacts of nutrient mining and pollution of water and soil by phosphorus and reactive nitrogen. Limitation of phosphate resources is another challenge.

With the objective to establish an urban circular agricultural production system in Germany the project SUSKULT elaborate an answer to the question above. SUSKULT develops technological and socio-political adaptation strategies for a circular urban agricultural production. SUSKULT develops and investigates a soilless sustainable local food production system, which draws the essential resources water, nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, CO2 and heat from a "wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) of the future". The transformation process of a conventional WWTP into a NEWtrient Center will be outlined for the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Region by means of a demonstration plant. The technological innovation will promote sustainable agricultural production systems of the future in Germany.

The focus of the Technical University of Kaiserslautern (TUK) lays particularly on the development of strategies for the integration of processes for resource recovery into the operation of conventional WWTP as well as on the development of demand-oriented adaptation strategies to combine WWTP, as resource suppliers, with food cultivation systems based on hydroponics. Additionally, the TUK will develop and investigate technical system components for potassium recovery from wastewater.