Spanish researchers boost energy crop yields with sewage sludge

November 20, 2014 |

In Spain, researchers from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and the Universidad Miguel Hernández of Elche have found a way to increase biomass production by using sewage sludge as energy crop fertilizers.

The Agroenergy Group from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) and researchers of the Universidad Miguel Hernández (UMH) of Elche have carried out a joint research work to determine the fertilization effects with sewage sludge compost into cynara productivity during three years. The results (“Sewage sludge compost use in bioenergy production – a case study on the effects on Cynara cardunculus L energy crop”) showed that the usage of this fertilizer has clear positive effects since the biomass production and the oilseeds increased up to 40% and 68% respectively, being this a substantial increase of energy crop production.

 

Category: Research

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