A Practical Case Report on the Node Point of a Butterfly Model Circular Economy: Synthesis of a New Hybrid Mineral–Hydrothermal Fertilizer for Rice Cropping

Abstract

With the increased importance of a circular economy in the world, in this paper we present a practical “butterfly model” (proposed by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation) case report: to gain extra benefits in rice cropping through hybridizing green products of mineral waste and agricultural waste recycling. Hydrothermal biorefinery was used to turn spent agricultural biomass into a value-added biomass nutrient solution (BNS). BNS and sericite mineral waste were mixed and used as a new hybrid mineral–hydrothermal fertilizer for rice cropping. The most important extra benefit of this new hybrid mineral–hydrothermal fertilizer was that the empty grains could be reduced to 1–4 grains/spike (normally, it is 12–18 grains/spike), without significantly decreasing the panicle weight or spike saturation. This case report provides a new logic for circular design at the “node” point of a butterfly diagram.

Unlocking the Potential of Agrifood Waste for Sustainable Innovation in Agriculture

“…There was an increase in the pH value of the soil as reported in the previous work, as well as an improvement in the botanical aspect (ear with more grains and improved panicle) when compared to the treatment using only water. In addition, the application of BFF significantly improves rice yield, as well as ensuring the robustness of the crop and its resistance to pests and diseases, thus improving the economy [86].…”

Optimal power generation for wind-hydro-thermal system using meta-heuristic algorithms

“…Basically, hydrothermal system scheduling problem can be divided into short-term [1-10], medium-term [11][12][13][14][15] and long-term models [16][17][18][19][20] based on the time period of scheduled optimization. Short-term HTSS problem is classified into fixed-head model [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] and variable head model [8][9][10], and this problem was also the most attracted problem among three different time period types. The main difference of the problems is scheduled time period.…”