Phosphorus (P) is essential for agricultural productivity, yet its inefficient use has created significant environmental and resource sustainability challenges. Approximately 80% of mined phosphorus is used in fertilizers, pesticides, and animal feeds, but nearly half is lost through erosion, runoff, and leaching into water systems. This excess phosphorus drives eutrophication and harmful algal blooms, degrading water quality, harming aquatic ecosystems, and threatening drinking water supplies. At the same time, phosphorus fertilizers are derived from finite phosphate rock reserves, raising concerns about long-term resource availability and food system sustainability. Current nutrient management practices remain largely linear, with phosphorus mined, applied, and lost rather than recovered and reused.
The overall goal of this project is to implement and demonstrate the feasibility of using sustainable, plant-derived waste materials functionalized with high surface area nanoceria sorbents as filtration media for phosphorus capture, recovery, and reuse. The project will advance this technology from laboratory validation to field implementation by scaling sorbent production, evaluating watershed-scale deployment, assessing the reuse of recovered phosphorus as a fertilizer, and establishing the economic feasibility of the technology for field use. Specifically, support from the CoE for Healthy Water Solutions will enable field demonstration, fertilizer reuse studies, stakeholder engagement, and proposal development for larger external funding opportunities.