As a potential solution to overcome water shortage challenges, membrane distillation (MD) offers a possibility for alleviating the water demand in water scarce countries. In the field of urine treatment, air-gap membrane distillation (AG-MD) enables simultaneous recovery of water and nutrients (e.g., nitrogen) for potable or non-portable use such as irrigation and toilet. The performances including the membrane flux as well as the ammonia-nitrogen (NH4+-N) and chemical oxygen demand (COD) concentration, and conductivity of distillates were studied experimentally. Our AGMD achieved a maximum water recovery of 31.9%~48.6% from human urine samples at pH=6.5 and 40oC, which yielded a temperatre difference of 20oC between the human urine and the surface of the code condenser at 20 oC. AGMD process operated at a loading flux of 4.2 kg m-2h-1 and achieved high COD removal efficiencies of 99.3%~99.5% and the removal efficiencies of NH4+-N of 40.6%~75.1%. This suggests that AGMD can directly use the heat from the fresh human urine on the feed side to achieve water and nutrient recovery.

Water recovery from human urine by air gap membrane distillation (AG-MD)

Macromolecular Chemistry: The Second Century

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ACS Spring 2020 National Meeting & Expo

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.