Urine luck
The increasing global demand for agricultural production poses challenges to maintain the needs for critical fertilizers such as nitrogen. This study explores the potential of human urine as a source of renewable nitrogen for fertilizer production. Through a life cycle assessment, three different ur...
| Autores: | , , , , |
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2025 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona |
| Repositorio: | Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB |
| Idioma: | inglés |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:ddd.uab.cat:303217 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://ddd.uab.cat/record/303217 https://dx.doi.org/urn:doi:10.1016/j.resconrec.2024.107985 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Circular economy Decentralized wastewater treatment Industrial ecology Life cycle assessment Nitrogen fertilizer Resource recovery |
| Sumario: | The increasing global demand for agricultural production poses challenges to maintain the needs for critical fertilizers such as nitrogen. This study explores the potential of human urine as a source of renewable nitrogen for fertilizer production. Through a life cycle assessment, three different urine management strategies were compared: (S1) an artificial wetland, (S2) an on-site lab-scale aerobic reactor for nitrogen recovery, and (S3) a centralized wastewater treatment plant. While scenario S2 had the highest impacts in 6 out of 8 categories, an advantage in marine eutrophication was identified. S2 showed high energy demand (750 kg MJ-eq) and ecotoxicity (602 kg 1.4-DCB-eq.) mainly due to energy requirements. Nitrogen production exceeded 2.3 times the yearly nitrogen demands of the building tomato production. Upscaling S2 reduces impacts up to 2 times, lowering the payback time from 29 to 13 years. Therefore, implementing large-scale nitrogen recovery systems in cities is encouraged. |
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