Nitrogen release and mineralization potential of derivatives from nutrient recovery processes as substitutes for fossil fuel‐based nitrogen fertilizers

The need to meet rapidly increasing demands for synthetic nitrogen (N) while reducing dependence on fossil fuels has been driving widespread attention to the recuperation and reuse of nutrients present in digestate and animal manure. The N release and mineralization potential of animal manure (AM), digestate (DIG), liquid fraction of digestate (LFDIG) and mineral concentrate (MC) were assessed in comparison with N availability from calcium ammonium nitrate (CAN) as a reference. The release was highly dependent on the product ‐N/N_total ratio, while mineralization occurred only for products containing more than 5% of organic N. The magnitude of the released N, on average after 120 days of an incubation experiment, was in the order: CAN > MC > LFDIG > DIG ≥ AM. These results indicate that only the N release from MC exhibited patterns similar to CAN, suggesting that this product will provide plant available N in a similar fashion as synthetic fertilizers. The N release from LFDIG was higher than AM, but did not closely follow the pattern of CAN. The N availability in LFDIG may be increased using substrates richer in N, such as animal manure or waste food and not only plant residues.