Phosphate is a vital fertilizer that is key to maintaining food security for the general population. While the future of global phosphate supplies is not fully known, there phosphate security in the past. One of the foremost issues with phosphate is that once used a fertilizer it will runoff into the local water supply where it can cause environmental damage via eutrophication. The Phosphate supply is also reliant on a select few countries that control a majority of economic phosphate reserves, leaving global food security dependant on their geopolitics. By preventing waste or removing phosphate from wastewater the global dependence.

The purpose of extracting phosphate from wastewater is to recover it from one of the most prolific sources of waste, fertilizer runoff. By using bacteria and algae to remove phosphates from water, environmental damage via eutrophication can also be prevented. The extracted phosphates can be reapplied to fields as a substitute fertilizer. The living organism also has the advantages of being a self-replenishing filter compared to conventional alternatives. Studies (Mukherjee et al. 2015) have shown that bacteria and algae are caples of removing phosphates and can release those phosphates back into the soil over time like conventional fertilizers when applied to fields. By examining an array of microorganisms on their properties of extraction, the goal is to create a consortium that works at higher efficiencies and could be effectively be reused as a fertilizer. The hypothesis formed from this information was that microorganisms could be used to extract phosphate from wastewater and deposit it back into the soil, and different microorganism could be mixed to increase the effectiveness

The methods used to test this was putting a consistent amount of microorganisms into a small culture and periodically measuring the amount of phosphate via a molybdenum blue method (Krishnaswamy et al. 2009). The results were such that the change in phosphate level was statistically significant. The differences between the algae and bacteria groups were too minute, and not enough data points were collected to prove the significance using a two way ANOVA test with one repeated measure. The next steps for future studies are to continue on the original broad plans that involve longer-term tests on extraction with different wastewaters and soil fertilization testing in different soil and environments. During data, collection mold contamination was a major hindrance, and further research on the cause could improve the success of future studies.