Liquid Gold – The Wastewater Revolution

Science 50' 2025 4K

Wastewater is much more than just waste. Each day, we flush valuable resources down our drains. Researchers are developing high-tech methods to recover what would otherwise be lost: energy, raw materials and information.

The sewage treatment plant of the future is both a power plant and a biorefinery. It generates electricity and produces bioplastics, and it also recovers the scarce nutrient phosphorus from wastewater. We go on a scientific treasure hunt in sewage. 

Our wastewater is a complex mixture of substances that contains valuable resources – energy, nutrients and even information about our everyday lives. Researchers around the world are working on ways to extract them.

In Hamburg, one of Europe's biggest wastewater heat pumps is currently being built: it will supply up to 39,000 households with heat. In Upper Bavaria, a company is recovering phosphorus from sewage sludge – a raw material that is indispensable for agriculture. Biotechnologist Yuemei Lin from Delft University of Technology discovered a natural polymer in sewage sludge that can be processed into biodegradable plastic – a potential solution to plastic pollution.

These examples show that wastewater is not a waste product, but part of several essential raw material cycles – a key to energy transition, resource conservation and sustainable management. 

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