Sidney Omelon

My research interests include developing processes to recover waste phosphorus from wastewater for reuse. One concentrated point source of waste phosphorus is municipal wastewater treatment processes. Some larger municipal wastewater treatment processes reduce the dissolved phosphate concentration by adding soluble iron, which precipitates low-solubility iron phosphate. Iron phosphate is a component of "biosolids" that are produced by anaerobic digestion of municipal wastewater sludge. Some biosolids are distributed on some farmland, or landfilled. Increasing the phosphorus fertilizer quality of biosolids could reduce phosphorus fertilizer use. Phosphorus fertilizer is unsustainably produced from non-renewable phosphate rock. After its application, high solubility phosphorus fertilizer is taken up by soil and crops, and in some cases can migrate into natural waters where it can enable algal blooms. One research project strives to convert insoluble iron phosphate in biosolids to more soluble calcium phosphate that can be taken up by plants, and will not run off into natural waters.