The current approach to wastewater management wastes valuable resources—potable water, fertilizer quality nutrients, and energy, while at the same time pollutes the biosphere with excess nutrients, contaminants of emerging concern, and greenhouse gases. The current failure of wastewater management is attributable to combining disparate waste streams (e.g., greywater and urine) and a ‘one size fits all’ approach to treatment. Of the waste streams that compose wastewater, urine accounts for approximately 1% of wastewater by volume yet urine contributes greater than 50% by mass of the nitrogen, phosphorus, and pharmaceuticals to wastewater. As such, urine diversion has been proposed as a more sustainable alternative to conventional wastewater management because it has the potential to conserve water and energy, recover nutrients for fertilizer, and protect ecological and human health from trace contaminants. Despite the promises of urine diversion and treatment, it has not been widely implemented because of an absence of engineering strategies that are efficient in contaminant removal, practical to implement, and acceptable to society. This presentation will highlight ongoing work in our group that seeks to advance both the basic understanding and practical implementation of urine diversion. Topics to be discussed include inhibiting urea hydrolysis to improve urine collection and enhance nutrient recovery, comparison of nutrient recovery process approaches, and pharmaceutical removal from urine.

Opportunities for building-scale urine diversion and challenges for implementation

2019 Fall National Meeting

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