6/18/2025
We deep dive into the NPower Project through the words of Miguel Ángel Suárez, project coordinator at CETENMA. Across four episodes, we explore the significance of NPower for the Region of Murcia, its integrated vision for nutrient management, the innovative technologies it employs, and its approach to regional collaboration at the European level. Each post highlights a key episode from this interview, offering a deeper insight into NPower’s goals and impact.
On this third episode, Suárez dives into the technological innovations being implemented by NPower. The project is deploying six technologies, each designed to recover nutrients from different raw materials. Among these are:
Anaerobic digestion of pig manure: This process produces biogas, and the remaining solid is treated to extract a circular fertiliser.
Liquid pig manure treatment: The liquid fraction is treated with bacterial cocktails and nanobubbles to make its nutrient composition more accessible for agricultural use.
Nature-based solutions for pisciculture effluents: Utilising these effluents to cultivate halophyte plants, such as salicornia, which thrive in saline environments.
Wastewater treatment plant solutions (two approaches): One involves direct nutrient recovery through phosphorus precipitation, and the other focuses on pre-concentration of nitrogenous salts for later use.
Agricultural runoff water treatment (CETENMA’s pilot): This involves treating runoff water with membranes and biological methods to recover water for agricultural reuse.
A critical goal for NPower is ensuring these technologies don’t just remain research curiosities. Suárez underlines the importance of “the development of technologies and the development of pilots to follow their course, their subsequent scaling through commercial exploitation… so that this does not remain an anecdote of a project but reaches reality”.