Performance Assessment and Challenges of Ammonia Stripping Technologies

Ammonia underpins nitrogen fertilizers and global food systems; however, the large-scale industrial synthesis of ammonia is severely destabilizing the planet's natural nitrogen cycle. This challenge, paired with increasing efforts to advance circularity in sewage management, offers new opportunities to scale-up ammonia recovery from wastewater. Ammonia stripping is one key approach to recover ammonia from wastewater. However, no systematic assessment exists of the performance of alternative stripping technologies in terms of key aspects such as energy consumption, stripping efficiency and economic viability, complicating investment decisions and hindering meaningful benchmarking of innovations. Here, we conduct a systematic review to compare the specific energy consumption (SEC) and cost of five ammonia stripping technologies. The review puts forward a framework to harmonize reporting on the performance of ammonia stripping technologies and thus ensure improved technology benchmarking moving forward.