Harvesting nutrients from source-separated urine using powdered rice straw
2018
Hashemi, Shervin | Han, Mooyoung
As a principle of resource-oriented sanitation practice, urine should be separated from the source and utilized for other purposes such as producing fertilizer. This is because urine is rich in nutrients; therefore, sending it directly to wastewater treatment plants causes problems in the regular treatment process. The addition of solid additives such as powdered rice straw can help with harvesting nutrients from urine. In this study, the procedure and efficiency of using powdered rice straw for nutrient harvesting were investigated by tracking the reductions in ammonia, phosphate, magnesium, and calcium ions, and the harvested nutrients were identified using crystallography methods. Results show that the ammonia, phosphate, and magnesium ions showed similar reduction trends. However, the reduction process was limited by the magnesium and phosphate availability, which reduced the nutrient harvesting efficiency. The nutrients harvested with the rice straw were identified to be mostly struvite. Balancing the phosphate and magnesium ions with ammonia is recommended to improve the efficiency of nutrient harvesting. The treated powdered rice straw can serve as a good solid fertilizer, while the remaining urine, which includes fewer nutrients, can be utilized for irrigation or sent to wastewater treatment plants.
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