The barley fertilized with our dried urine is growing well.
The picture meant to be posted here as well (but can’t) is taken 27 days after planting and it looks really good!
Category: English
Nutrient Recovery and Reuse – Help Us Design a Systematic Map and Evidence Platform
Research and development of circular nutrient technologies has intensified over the past years, making research output in this field increasingly hard to navigate and keep track of. There is a need for a robust and comprehensive mapping and synthesis of existing relevant research and better brokering of knowledge to policy and practice.
Researchers at our group are involved in the collaborative project End-of-wastewater that aims to:
- Collate available peer-reviewed English language research on nutrient recovery and reuse into a comprehensive evidence base using systematic mapping methodology.
- Develop an online evidence platform to navigate relevant scientific papers with ease.
PhD Defence of Prithvi Simha on Alkaline Urine Dehydration, 2nd of June
The public defence of the doctoral thesis for Prithvi Simha, entitled “Alkaline Urine Dehydration. How to dry source-separated human urine and recover nutrients?” is scheduled –
When? 2nd of June at 13:00 Where? Room Framtiden at MVM-hus at SLU in Uppsala and via Zoom Click this URL to join via Zoom: https://slu-se.zoom.us/j/69422000884 with Passcode: 732271
External reviewer: Professor Nancy Love, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA.
Examining committee: Professor Annelie Hedström, LuleÄ University of Technology, LuleÄ, Sweden; Docent Sebastian Schwede, MÀlardalen University, VÀsterÄs, Sweden; and PhD Surendra Pradhan, University of Eastern Finland, Kuopia, Finland
The thesis is openly available at: https://pub.epsilon.slu.se/23473/1/simha_p_210511.pdf
Interested in practical aspects of Black Soldier Fly (BSF) waste processing?
As BSF has become mainstream as an exciting way to treat organic waste, we receive more and more inquiries with questions on âwhat shall Iâ and âhow shall Iâ. Academic journal articles seldom give enough easily digestible answers for practitioners, interested in starting or already operating a BSF facility.
For this purpose a practical knowledge hub webpage has been established which contains information all around BSF waste processing in a hopefully easy and practical format for people âin the fieldâ.
Professor installation lecture
At the end of April all new professors at SLU were having their installation lectures. A totally new concept with online lectures and the audience could ask questions online. Björn gave his lecture with focus on how we in the future can decrease the emissions to the environment by disconnecting us from the water and wastewater system and instead use the same water in the house by cleaning and reusing it at the same time as we produce a clean fertiliser out of the toilet fraction. In total 147 people were attending the lecture. It is still possible to follow the lecture at the following link: https://youtu.be/EYtuP0ino3M?t=15148
Contact: Björn VinnerÄs
BSFL frass used to grow vegetables
Containing substantial amounts of plant nutrients, black soldier fly larvae frass or âBSF residueâ, is a promising soil amendment that gains more and more interest with increasing BSF farming around the globe. In the last years, the residue at our BSF colony, accumulating from various chicken and fish feed experiments, was an overlooked âby-productâ. Most of the residue ended up in our own garden plots or worse, was sent off for incineration. As the 2021 garden-season kicked off, the BSF group teamed up with Ultuna Permaculture to put 500 kg of BSF residue to good use! Last month, the garlics received their first load of extra nutrients and once the weather starts to warm up, the potatoes are next. Our vision is to create a closed loop system in which we feed our fly larvae with locally sourced waste (such as bread or vegetable waste from nearby factories), generate protein in form of larval biomass and put the residue from the process back into the food chain.
Contact: Viktoria Wiklicky
Best Paper Award for âRecycling Nutrients Contained in Human Excreta to Agriculture: Pathways, Processes, and Productsâ
Over the past years, research on technologies to recover nutrients from human excreta and domestic wastewater has intensified to such an extent that it has become difficult even for researchers in the field to keep track of new developments. In 2019, Harder and colleagues published a paper in Critical Reviews in Environmental Science and Technology that aimed to provide a synthesis of available and proposed nutrient recovery pathways, covering both processes and products rendered by treatment.
Barely is growing well!
With the moisture and warming sun, the barley from our urine fertilizer trials are growing nicely. Planted April 30th. At this stage there is no visible difference between the treatments (no fertilizer, conventional fertilizer and urine fertilizer).
Master student analyses nutrient flows
My name is Sharareh Farshchiha and I am doing my master in Environmental Science at Gothenburg University. I write my master thesis for Sweden Water Research in collaboration with Robin Harder as my supervisor in SLU. The aim of the study is to map and analyze the circularity of nutrient flows (N, P, K) for the current agricultural system, food consumption, and waste management infrastructure in Sweden. To analysis the nutrient flows, the Swedish food system was divided into five subsystems where the analysis performed focused on: 1. agricultural land, 2. livestock production, 3. food processing, 4. food consumption, and 5. residual management. The five subsystems was investigated considering internal and external nutrient flows. Internal flow represents the regional food system while the external flow relates to any food system outside of the geographical region of Sweden which interacts with the regional food system by food and feed imports and exports. To calculate the amount of nutrients in the five subsystems associated with external and internal flows, a calculation model was performed in Microsoft Excel. The model calculation in this study was developed by Robin Harder for Swedish food system. The extend of the model for waste system was done by a collaboration between me and a student from Lund University, Emma Enström, who is doing her master thesis in the same topic but for SkĂ„ne. Â
Presentation about larvae for high school students held from the office
Friday afternoon, the 23rd of April, Lovisa Lindberg was standing in her office and held a presentation about larvae as a substitute for fish feed for high school students from VĂ€rmdö municipality. This was a part of BSSCâs (Baltic Sea Science Center) theme week at Skansen where they invited different experts to talk about their science projects related to the Baltic Sea. Classes from grade 9 up to grade 12 booked the lectures they wanted to attend to during this week. In addition to the lectures, they were sent material in advance to read or watch such as popular summaries about the topic or if there were any videos available. After the lecture, the work continued with a scientific paper related to the topic and the goal was for them to get an understanding of how a scientific paper is written.
