Compact and Robust Membrane Bioreactor for Source-Separated Urine Resource Recovery for a Circular Economy

Jiang, Jiaxi

Compact and Robust Membrane Bioreactor for Source-Separated Urine Resource Recovery for a Circular Economy

Jiang, Jiaxi

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Publication Type:: Thesis
Issue Date:: 2022

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Jiang, Jiaxi
dc.date.accessioned	2023-07-14T00:23:12Z
dc.date.available	2023-07-14T00:23:12Z
dc.date.issued	2022
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/171488
dc.description	University of Technology Sydney. Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology.	en_US.UTF-8
dc.description.abstract	Human urine contains essential nutrient – nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) - for crop cultivation. However, using raw human urine as a direct agricultural fertilizer source is limited, due to its distinct odour, high pH condition, pathogen risk associated with faecal cross-contamination, and the possible presence of high concentrations of pharmaceuticals. Biological nitrification, a two-step biological oxidation process, is therefore a promising technology to covert volatile and odorous ammonia into stable odour-free nitrate, while still preserving all the nutrients. Although biological nitrification is a well-understood process, only a few research groups have studied the application of this process with undiluted human urine, and the experiences to optimize the nitrification of source-separated urine without addition of alkalinity are even less. In addition, micropollutants such as pharmaceuticals and personal care products are a group of emerging environmental contaminants, which are structurally complex and can cause adverse physiological effects on human health even at low concentration when exposed for long-term. However, the current wastewater treatment technologies are not designed to remove these compounds, and hence most of these residual pharmaceuticals and hormones remain in the treated effluent. Therefore, it is very important that we remove the residual micropollutants by a natural biological process. The combined processes of powdered activated carbon - microfiltration membrane bioreactor (PAC-MF-MBR) is thereby proposed in this work to optimize the efficiency of biological nitrification, control membrane fouling, improve organic removal efficiency from 88% to 96%, achieve greater than 99% removal efficiency among all targeted micropollutants (metronidazole, acetaminophen, naproxen, ibuprofen carbamazepine and estriol), promote more rapid biomass growth, increase sludge floc size growth by 17% and achieve complete nutrient recovery from source-separated urine. This study demonstrates the potential application of full-scale PAC-MF-MBR plant in treating source-separated urine at building level for complete nutrient recovery.	en_US.UTF-8
dc.format	Thesis (PhD)
dc.language.iso	en_US	en_US.UTF-8
dc.relation	https://opus.lib.uts.edu.au/bitstream/10453/171488/2/02whole.pdf
dc.rights	info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
dc.rights	The author owns the copyright in this thesis including all reproduction and reuse rights for the work. The work may not be altered without the permission of the copyright owner. Attribution is essential when quoting or paraphrasing from this thesis.
dc.rights	© 2022 Jiaxi Jiang
dc.rights	au.edu.uts.lib/cph
dc.title	Compact and Robust Membrane Bioreactor for Source-Separated Urine Resource Recovery for a Circular Economy	en_US.UTF-8
dc.type	Thesis
utslib.copyright.status	open_access	*

Abstract:

Human urine contains essential nutrient – nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) - for crop cultivation. However, using raw human urine as a direct agricultural fertilizer source is limited, due to its distinct odour, high pH condition, pathogen risk associated with faecal cross-contamination, and the possible presence of high concentrations of pharmaceuticals. Biological nitrification, a two-step biological oxidation process, is therefore a promising technology to covert volatile and odorous ammonia into stable odour-free nitrate, while still preserving all the nutrients. Although biological nitrification is a well-understood process, only a few research groups have studied the application of this process with undiluted human urine, and the experiences to optimize the nitrification of source-separated urine without addition of alkalinity are even less. In addition, micropollutants such as pharmaceuticals and personal care products are a group of emerging environmental contaminants, which are structurally complex and can cause adverse physiological effects on human health even at low concentration when exposed for long-term. However, the current wastewater treatment technologies are not designed to remove these compounds, and hence most of these residual pharmaceuticals and hormones remain in the treated effluent. Therefore, it is very important that we remove the residual micropollutants by a natural biological process. The combined processes of powdered activated carbon - microfiltration membrane bioreactor (PAC-MF-MBR) is thereby proposed in this work to optimize the efficiency of biological nitrification, control membrane fouling, improve organic removal efficiency from 88% to 96%, achieve greater than 99% removal efficiency among all targeted micropollutants (metronidazole, acetaminophen, naproxen, ibuprofen carbamazepine and estriol), promote more rapid biomass growth, increase sludge floc size growth by 17% and achieve complete nutrient recovery from source-separated urine. This study demonstrates the potential application of full-scale PAC-MF-MBR plant in treating source-separated urine at building level for complete nutrient recovery.

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http://hdl.handle.net/10453/171488