Jenna Senecal was interviewed by Modern Farmer about the potential to safely recover nutrients from human urine to help protect the environment. Scroll down to read the article.
Liquid Gold: How Stronger Food Systems Can Start In Your Toilet
Category: English
Guide to Sanitation Resource Recovery Products & Technologies published!
We are very pleased to share with you the 1st edition of the Guide to Sanitation Resource Recovery Products & Technologies. The Guide is a popular science publication that gives an overview of the possible resources that can be recovered and provides guidance on treatment processes to achieve safe products for reuse. The specific objectives of this document are:
- To expose the user to a broad range of recovered sanitation products and innovative treatment technologies.
- To help the user to design functional solutions for resource recovery by illustrating the linkages between sanitation inputs, treatment technology and the recoverable products.
- To provide an overview of basic information regarding design aspects, operational requirements, and health, safety and social considerations related to resource recovery technologies and products.
- Describe and fairly present technology-specific advantages and disadvantages.
The Guide to Sanitation Resource Recovery Products and Technologies is primarily a reference book. It is intended to be used by engineers, planners, end-users, researchers, technology developers, sanitation entrepreneurs, non-governmental organisation (NGO) staff and students who are interested in creating circular systems for resource use. It aims to support and enable decision making for increased resource recovery by providing information on key decision criteria for a range of recovered products and treatment technologies, thus highlighting the diversity of options available for resource recovery.
Links to download the guide:
https://pub.epsilon.slu.se/21284/
https://www.susana.org/en/knowledge-hub/resources-and-publications/library/details/4008
Chea Eliyan’s one year follow-up seminar
On the 9th of December, Chea Eliyan had her one-year follow-up seminar. She presented her research about resource recovery from faecal sludge in Phnom Penh, focusing on the results from the first two studies about faecal sludge characterization and quantification. She preliminary concluded that faecal sludge generation in Phnom Penh is at the increasing trend. The two natural wetlands around the city play a key role as a faecal sludge receiving reservoir before discharging to the rivers. Nutrients and organic matters level in faecal sludge is correlated with the connectedness of containment to the drainage but not by the type of containment. She also included the proposed approaches for her next two studies. The seminar ended with many interesting questions about sanitation challenges in Phnom Penh and the research.
Following the stricter recommendations about Covid-19, there were only four persons in a large room, and around 22 more participated online via Zoom.
Chris Buckley talks to Radio SAfm about urine drying
Last week, following our joint article on urine recycling in The Conversation Africa, Prof. Christopher Buckley from the University of KwZulu-Natal was interviewed by SAfm, South Africa’s national public radio station. In his interview with Stephen Groote, Prof. Buckley talked about our group’s pioneering urine treatment technology, alkaline dehydration, and how the technology holds promise for implementation across Africa. In the coming year, along with Prof Buckley’s research group and local stakeholders, we are hoping to implement our urine drying technology in Durban, South Africa. Listen to the interview below –
Lovisa Lindberg’s one year follow-up seminar
The 25th of November, Lovisa Lindberg had her one year follow-up seminar. She talked about fly larvae composting, focusing on results from the first study about process efficiency, greenhouse gas emissions and pre-treatments with ammonia and fungi using orange peels and vegetables as substrates. The newly gotten result from the started second study was also mentioned, focusing on pre-treatment time and pre-treatment with ammonia and enzymes. The seminar ended with several interesting questions about the research.
Vietnames Agritech conference
Björn was invited as Sweden’s representative in the Vietnames Agritech conference during the 28th of November. The title of his talk was technical solutions in relation to “Challenges in Post-Covid Environment for Agriculture Sector”. His focus of the presentation and the panel discussion was that the circular economy can reduce the pollution of the environment as we remove the nutrients from the linear flow of today. At the same time do we increase the resilience in the agriculture as we can replace up to half of the imported mineral fertilisers with local waste and wastewater generated fertilisers. The new Covid era gives new opportunities for global collaboration and knowledge sharing over the internet.
By redesigning wastewater systems, we can build a circular pee-conomy
Jenna Senecal was interviewed by Popular Science, a widely distributed magazine in North America, about the potential to safely recover nutrients from human urine to help protect the environment. Scroll down to read the article –
Study visit from Sustainable Food Systems
In September, the environmental engineering group received a study visit from students in the Sustainable Food Systems master program. The course Prospects and challenges for sustainable food systems, held by Pernilla Tidåker who is a senior lecturer at the Department of Energy and Technology, includes a couple of lectures on source separation of waste water and the concept of nutrient recycling. Victoria Wiklicky, research assistant, gave an introduction to fly larvae composting; Caroline Karlsson, also research assistant, talked about source-separation of waste water and urine drying and Annika Nordin, researcher, showed and talked about the environmental engineering group’s innovative waste water treatment solutions. The study visit was held outdoors in accordance with the covid-19 restrictions, the students circulated between the three stations, listened to and discussed the different research topics. They also got to pay a visit (at safe distance) to the urine diverting toilet and drying system at the department of Energy and Technology.
We developed a simple process to recycle urine. Here’s how it’s done in 10 Steps
Every year on November 19, the United Nations celebrates one of public health’s greatest inventions – the toilet. Those who are fortunate enough to have access to one spend more than a year of their lives on it, yet millions of people worldwide cannot use one and many have never even seen one.
Invented back in 1775, the flush toilet has changed surprisingly little in design. In fact, a toilet is nothing more than a seat (or a pan) connected to a pipe with a bend. If this pipe is further connected to a system of sewers that carries away excreta to a centralised treatment plant, then wastewater can safely be discharged into the environment.
Phosphorus and nitrogen recovery from anaerobic digestate – how effective is it?
Anaerobic digestion is widely applied to sewage sludge and other organic residuals to stabilize the substrate and capture some of its energetic value via the production of biogas. By combining anaerobic digestion with nutrient recovery technologies, both energy and nutrients could be recovered. Struvite precipitation and ammonia stripping are two of the most mature technologies to recover phosphorus and nitrogen from streams such as the liquid fraction of anaerobic digestate. But how effective are these two processes in terms of nutrient recovery?
