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Studying novel fertilisers using large-scale facilities
06 Jun 2025
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- Rosie de Laune

 

 

Professor Ruben Sakrabani from Cranfield University collaborated with ISIS, Diamond Light Source and the Central Laser Facility scientists on research into more sustainably produced fertiliser pellets.

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​(a) Photograph of one of the imaged fertiliser pellets, where the dashed lines indicate the NCT and XCT horizontal (green dashed line) and vertical (blue dashed lines) slicing planes; (b) Photograph of the NCT experimental setup, where the pellets (red dashed lines) are inserted into a thin aluminium tube and mounted onto a tomography stage in front of the imaging detector; (c,d) Horizontal (green) and vertical (blue) cross-sections taken from NCT reconstructions of the pellet in (a), showing variations in packing density indicating the distribution of pellet constituents; (e,f) Horizontal (green) and vertical (blue) cross-sections taken from XCT data of the same pellet, showing detailed internal structure of the pellet’s constituents.​

 

​The manufacture of mineral fertilisers such as ammonium nitrate or urea produces almost 2% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Organo-mineral fertilisers use much less of these mineral ingredients, combining them with organic material such as manure or straw.

However, the organic materials are naturally varied, unlike the standard mineral ingredients. For farmers, reliability between batches is important, and the industry needs a way of assessing variability and ensuring the new fertiliser will be suitable for widespread application.

In this research, Professor Ruben Sakrabani collaborated with STFC scientists to develop a correlative study on a novel fertiliser. This fertiliser was produced by combining organic material with a small amount of mineral ingredients and carbon dioxide captured from carbon emissions.

Their paper, published in Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, is the first one to use large-scale facilities to evaluate the physical and chemical properties of these fertiliser pellets.

Ruben first heard about the facilities at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory through the STFC Food Network+. They initially seemed very far away from his area of research, but he attended one of their sandpits and “one thing led to another."

From this, he started a collaboration with Dr Genoveva Burca (Diamond Principal Scientist and ISIS visiting scientist) on using correlative imaging techniques to study his pellets. Dr Burca developed the correlative neutron and X-ray imaging studies, Dr Sara Mosca from the Central Laser Facility carried out Raman spectroscopy measurements and Dr Alex Liptak (DLS) worked on visualisation and data segmentation.

“Neutron imaging  turned out to be a valuable technique for investigating the pellets as they are non-destructive, and sensitive to light elements which means we could assess the moisture variability in the pellets while keeping them intact," he explains. In addition, synchrotron X-ray imaging data complemented both the neutron imaging and the Raman spectroscopy results.

“The STFC Food Network was instrumental to me discovering these techniques," he says. “The use of STFC facilities is uncommon in food and agriculture scientists. The network encouraged me to think outside the box. It was exciting to come to RAL and work together with colleagues from the Harwell Campus. This experience encouraged me to come at ISIS for further experiments."

The correlative experiments showed the internal structure of the pellets, proving that the manufacturing process produces intact pellets that could be applied successfully using a spreader. These spreaders propel the pellets up to 36m across a field, and it's important that the pellet remains intact during this process, giving an even distribution of fertiliser and therefore crop growth.

After this project, Ruben expanded his use to ISIS and began working with scientists from the muon instruments at ISIS. His subsequent study used muons to analyse the elemental composition along the pellet depth to ascertain whether the chemistry is uniformly distributed. 

Ruben is planning to return to ISIS and Diamond for further studies, including as part of an international collaboration with a prominent palm oil company to investigate the chemistry of their palm oil residue.   

The results of these experiments will give farmers confidence when using this novel fertiliser. 

The full paper can be found at DOI:10.3389/fsufs.2025.1570461​​

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