£1m project transforming slurry into crop fertilisers and water launches
19th March 2025
A pioneering £1 million project that will help transform dairy cow slurry into crop fertilisers and water has been launched by Harper Adams University and a team of industry partners.
The university and the School of Sustainable Food and Farming (SSFF), along with industrial partners, elentecBio, Merigan, Stoic Options and Mastek, have been awarded research funding to continue their pioneering work to convert slurry from dairy cows into crop fertilisers, generating water for further use.
Dr Marie Kirby, senior lecturer at Harper Adams University, said: “There are many potential benefits from slurry, but its application to farmed land is problematic in areas with increased susceptibility to pollution.
“This project will convert slurry from a residue product into something which is more valuable to farmers.”
Cost-effective method for processing slurry
This research project was funded by Defra as part of their Farming Innovation Programme Nutrient Management competition, and is managed via Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency.
It will develop elentecBio’s novel technology at farm-scale to separate water for further use and recover phosphorous, nitrogen and organic matter from cattle slurry.
The technology works through electrocoagulation, a treatment technology that adds an electrical charge to water as a way of recovering nutrients. The separated nutrients can be applied to growing crops, instead of spreading high-water content, low-nutrient slurries or synthetic fertilisers.
Previous research has demonstrated that elentecBio’s recovered nutrient fractions are highly bioavailable to crops – meaning they can be absorbed easily by the plants – and promote significantly higher crop and root-mass yields compared to slurry and synthetic fertilisers.
The researchers said that this technology will provide farmers with a cost-effective method for processing slurry, enabling time- and cost-effective nutrient application to land with reduced environmental impacts.
The recovered nutrients can be sold off-farm, generating new income streams for dairy farmers and compliance with developing environmental legislation.
‘Compact, robust, scalable process’
ElentecBio explained that its technology is modular in design and has been designed to be scalable and retrofitted to existing slurry systems. It has already been demonstrated to work in other industrial applications.
This new research at Harper Adams University will now appraise commercial-scale technology operation and build different business models designed to fit farmer expectations.
Dr Jayne Brookman, CEO of elentecBio, said: “We are delighted to receive this award, funded by DEFRA and delivered by Innovate UK. It supports us in our development of a slurry treatment product backed by excellent science.
“The treatment will deliver a compact, robust, scalable process for efficient fractionation of dairy farm slurry. It will provide farmers with an opportunity to deliver environmental benefits whilst improving their farm profitability.”
The project is keen to discuss its business models with a range of agricultural stakeholders.
If you would like more information or are interested in demonstration days for the technology, please contact Sue Crosthwaite at sue@meriganltd.co.uk or visit www.elentecbioag.com
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