A novel approach was developed for phosphorus recovery from wastewater through thermal treatment of matured phosphorus-accumulating granular sludge cultivated in sequencing batch airlift reactor (SBAR) system. Results showed that SBAR system had stable performances, in which COD, total phosphorus (TP) and total nitrogen (TN) removal efficiencies were stabilized at 80%, 89% and 86%, respectively. The matured granules were gathered from SBAR reactor and heated at relatively low temperature (100 degrees C, 200 degrees C, 300 degrees C). The total P content in thermal treated granular sludge was more than half of total nutrient. Furthermore, the phosphorus release rate for treated granules was negatively correlated with thermal treatment temperature. These results demonstrated that the granules harvested from SBAR system followed with thermal pre-treatment could probably be applied as excellent slow-release phosphorus fertilizer. Hence, low temperature treatment of phosphate-accumulating granules is efficient for phosphorus recovery from wastewater, which is likely to promote the application of granulation technology. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.