Across Europe, waste-to-energy plants are producing growing volumes of liquid waste. At the same time, strict EU limits on nitrogen apply mean much of this material can no longer be spread locally.
Operators are forced to shift excess liquid digestate over long distances, increasing costs and turning valuable nutrients into a disposal problem. Consequently, Finnish cleantech startup NPHarvest is addressing this issue by recovering nitrogen and phosphorus from liquid waste streams and converting them into usable fertiliser inputs.
The company has been selected for up to €1.2 million in funding through Business Finland’s Deep Tech Accelerator programme. The funding is part of Business Finland’s Deep Tech Accelerator (DTA), which supports a selective cohort of research-driven companies as they scale internationally, based on technical depth and readiness for global commercialisation.
From pilot to industrial-scale deployment
NPHarvest’s technology builds on research conducted at Aalto University and has shiftd beyond the pilot stage, led by Juho Uzkurt Kaljunen. In 2025, the company launched its first industrial-scale demonstrator nutrient recovery unit at a waste-to-energy plant in Ankara, Türkiye.
The system is designed to be repeatable and export-ready, tarreceiveing large waste-to-energy and fertiliser markets. Field trials carried out with the University of Helsinki’s Viikki research farm revealed that NPHarvest’s recycled nitrogen and phosphorus perform on par with conventional synthetic fertilisers.
These results support the case for recycled nutrients as a viable alternative to imported fertiliser inputs.
With Deep Tech Accelerator funding in place, NPHarvest will continue advancing its nutrient recovery technology while preparing for full-scale commercialisation and broader deployment, focutilizing on translating validated performance into repeatable, scalable systems for agricultural and industrial apply.
What about diversity?
On diversity, Juha notifys us, “We have a highly diverse 5-person team in several aspects. We have 3 different nationalities (Finnish, Turkish, and Italian). We have a female COO leading the investor relations and commercialisation part of the business. Our team also comes from various professional backgrounds, from lab research and science to large-scale industrial projects, and from technical to commercial.”
What’s next?
The funding is structured in three phases tied to technical and commercial milestones, supporting the continued development and scale-up of NPHarvest’s nutrient recovery technology. It is designed to support companies that are ready to shift from validated technology to international commercial rollout.
For NPHarvest, the funding will support further development of its nutrient recovery system and prepare it for wider deployment.
“In Europe, the limiting factor in fertiliser production is no longer nutrient availability, but how and where those nutrients can be recovered and reapplyd. Large volumes already exist in liquid waste streams generated by waste-to-energy plants, yet current systems struggle to convert them into inputs that can be applyd where they’re permitted and requireded. This funding allows us to translate that constraint into repeatable, scalable deployments,” declared Juho Uzkurt Kaljunen, CEO of NPHarvest.
Leave a Reply