PhD position Improving fertilising properties and reduction of emissions from dairy excrements by novel manure management strategies

Do you want to contribute to a more sustainable future and development of solutions for the circular economy? The Farm Technology Group at Wageningen University & Research is offering a 4-year PhD position to work on improving fertilising properties and reduction of emissions from dairy excrements by novel manure management strategies, commencing 1 Sept 2020. The work of the PhD fellow will be part of the EU FertiCycle Network, which is a multidisciplinary European Training Network (ETN) funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions. The Ferticycle Network comprises 9 world leading universities and 7 research institutions / agencies/companies in 8 European countries. The FertiCycle Network is currently recruiting 15 highly talented and motivated candidates for PhD studies, with the skills, knowledge and enthusiasm to help our network make successful research breakthroughs on new bio-based fertilisers from organic waste upcycling – the chosen candidate will be collaborating with these colleagues for the coming 4 years. Are you interested to read more about the other projects? You can find them on the project website: http://www.ferticycle.ku.dk

The candidate for ESR-1 will further develop innovative methods for sustainable management of dairy excrements throughout the whole chain from excretion up to application in typical dairy farm crops like grass and maize. You will initiate, carry out and be responsible for the activities for three research tasks, being 1) Preparation, characterisation and comparison of various types of urine, faeces and slurry from dairy cows, 2) Anaerobic digestion experiments with the various types of faeces and slurry obtained in task 1, and 3) Storage experiments with the obtained pure and additionally treated types of wastes faeces. Research task 4) An agronomic field experiment with maize and grass where the various types of wastes will be set-up and carried out in close cooperation with ESR9 (fertiliser value and environmental implications). Besides, the candidate will also do a secondment (internship as visiting researcher) at one of the other FertiCycle partners for 1-3 months.

This research builds on previously designed new management systems for the whole manure chain based on segregation (keeping separated) of faeces and urine in the dairy cow house, meaning that no slurry mixture is formed. Model calculations showed that emissions and consequently environmental impacts (global warming, terrestrial acidification, energy use) can be reduced simultaneously by at least 70% as compared to traditional manure management. Further underpinning and validation of these results in either laboratory or pilot conditions is the aim of the current study.

In this position you will closely work together with Dr. Jerke de Vries and Prof. Dr. Peter Groot Koerkamp.