We are quite happy to share that our project proposal to FORMAS, the Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development, has recevied funding of 3 million SEK via the annual open call to continue research on the urine dehydration technology. Through this project, the overall goal will be to develop next generation urine dehydrator prototypes that are capable of recovering from urine >95% N, 100% P, and 100% K, in order to produce dry pellets with <5% moisture, but high fertiliser value: >10% N, >2.5% P, and >5% K. The work will be conducted at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences over 3 years between 2020 and 2023.
Category: English
Björn and Cecilia talks toilets with P4 Uppland on the world toilet day 19th of November (Swedish only)
Link to article: https://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=7347546
Link to the whole interview: https://sverigesradio.se/avsnitt/1399159 (1:04:00 into the show)
Global Webinar: Sanitation and Employment World Toilet Day 2019
“Ask not what employment can do for sanitation – ask what sanitation can do for employment”.
Commemorating World Toilet Day 2019, Sida and partnersincluding SEI, SLU, WaterAid, SIWI, Univ of KwaZulu-Natal and SuSanA invite you to an inspirational webinar about the excellent yet untapped drivers for business, entrepreneurship and job opportunity that the sanitation value chain represents. While doing so, we will bring attention to critical challenges that workers in the sanitation industry often face and the needed actions being taken to tackle them.
Come and join the conversation on Thursday 21 November at 14:00-15.30 CET to learn more about improving the business of sanitation, for the sanitation workforce and the global communities they serve.
Join the webinar here: https://seint.adobeconnect.com/seiwebinar/
Master’s project Microplastic solution – Protein polymer from food waste
Insect protein-based polymer development provides a new alternative resource for plastic production allowing extracting value from food waste. The black soldier fly larvae efficiently convert organic material in the waste into their own biomass which is rich in protein. Using these proteins for plastic production allows taking advantage of the resources in food waste that are currently lost. Moreover, such production does not compete with food production unlike some other types of bioplastics.
Master’s Project: Insect protein resource for plastic production
Global plastic production is increasing with growing population and packaging demands. Plastic packaging production is responsible for nearly half of all plastic produced in EU. Currently there are no easy ways to recycle plastic mainly due to existence of multiple types of plastics that are not sorted properly. This leads to a reality that even in developed economies the majority of plastic packaging is not recycled but instead dumped, landfilled or in best case incinerated. While it is important to continue the work towards better plastic waste source-segregation, finding a sustainable and renewable raw material for plastic production is equally important.
SLU has its own urine-diverting flush toilet!
Unpacking the new toilet at SLU!
Today was quite an exciting day at Kretsloppsteknik for the urine drying project as we received our shipment of a prototype of the pioneering urine-diverting toilet developed by EOOS, Eawag and LAUFEN. In the coming month, our group along with SLU and Akademiska Hus will install the toilet at the Department of Energy and Technology. We then plan to connect this toilet to a prototype of the urine dehydration technology being developed by us. The toilet along with our technology has the potential to disrupt the status quo in sanitation and revolutionise the sector! This installation is being supported by funding from the SLU Climate Fund.
New publication in the Global Water Pathogen Project about Salmonella
Björn Vinnerås and Annika Nordin have together with R Hasan, S Shakoor and I Keenum compiled current knowledge regarding Salmonella. Our focus in the chapter has been the effect upon salmonella in relation to current practices and available treatment technologies. Treatment technologies for reduction of Salmonella in wastewater fractions can be divided into three main types: chemical, biological and thermal. When comparing the inactivation of Salmonella spp. with Escherichia coli, the latter is somewhat more resistant to most treatments and can therefore be used as a proper indicator for salmonella during treatments. Salmonella has several genetically-driven responses to stress related to the inactivation treatments, which increase survival during extreme conditions. In this chapter the inactivation time for salmonella in relation to pH, ammonia concentration and temperature is presented. For pH, generated inactivation chemical substances aid in the inactivation: at higher pH uncharged ammonia is the most active molecule enhancing inactivation while at low pH carbonate and organic acids both increase the efficiency of inactivation. For heat inactivation, increased dry matter content increases the time of survival. Biological treatments affect the survival, while also decreasing the number of viable Salmonella over time. However, the effect of the biological treatment is difficult to monitor and quantify and therefore extended treatment durations are recommended for biological treatment if the treatment is not combined with chemical or thermal treatment.
Waste management with insects was presented in Honour of Professor Erik Dahlquist
Thursday last week (31/10), Björn and Cecilia from the Environmental Engineering group visited Västerås and presented about waste management using insects in the seminar held in Honour of Professor Erik Dahlquist. Erik Dahlquist is Professor in Energy Technology at the Mälardalen University and has with the help of his long experience in improvements of process efficiency development co-developed the ventilation system used in the fly larvae treatment system. We got to listen to other very interesting presentations on the batteries needed for our fossil free future and we got to listen to the tale of the development of the collaborative robot YuMi at ABB. Erik finished the seminar presenting the development of energy production and usage in primely Sweden from the 1950s till today and gave a prognoses of what can be expected up till 2090. Very interesting! Erik is to be retired but will work part time as Senior Professor from the start of next year. We hope for continued great collaboration and wish Erik good luck in future and more time with family and his triathlon endeavours.
Larvae fed bread get really fat
How does the fat content and composition in the larvae of the black solider fly (Hermetia illucens) change with the diet provided to them? In our latest article published in Waste Management, Nils Ewald and co-authors brings new knowledge on this topic. The study is based on eleven feeding trials were the larvae were fed diets based on mussels, fish, bread and food waste. The larval fat was found to contain mainly saturated fatty acids, especially lauric acid, but was also affected by the weight of the larvae and the diet. For example, the larvae fed with mussels and fish contained EPA and DHA – Omega- 3 fatty acids that are valuable for aquaculture. However, the levels of these fatty acids were found to be too low to replace fish oil in fish feed but could potentially be used for replacing the vegetable oil fraction. Other possible applications of the larval fat could be in the production of food or fuel.
New publication on pre-treatment of banana peels for BSFL composting
Alice Isibika and co-authors have published a new study in the journal Waste Management, on the application of pre-treatments prior BSFL treatment of banana peels as a fibrous and nutrient imbalanced substrate to enhance bioconversion ratio. The applied pre-treatments were non-protein nitrogen for balancing the carbon/nitrogen , heat and microbes(fungi and bacteria) pre-treatments for breaking down complex compounds into more readily available forms in the banana peels to be consumed by the BSFL. They found that direct addition of ammonia solution in the banana peel and addition of both fungi (Trichoderma, Rhizopus) and bacteria (BSFL gut bacteria) improved the BSFL response efficiencies while heat treatment did not improve. For microbial pre-treatment 14 days was found to be the total time to achieve sufficient degradation of the banana peels for BSFL consumption.