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Urine luck: Environmental assessment of yellow water management in buildings for urban agriculture
Sostenipra Research Group, Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA-UAB), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), Campus UAB, 08193 Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain, Campus UAB, Barcelona.
KTH, School of Architecture and the Built Environment (ABE), Sustainable development, Environmental science and Engineering. Sostenipra Research Group, Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA-UAB), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), Campus UAB, 08193 Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain, Campus UAB, Barcelona;, .
Sostenipra Research Group, Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA-UAB), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), Campus UAB, 08193 Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain, Campus UAB, Barcelona.
Sostenipra Research Group, Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA-UAB), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), Campus UAB, 08193 Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain, Campus UAB, Barcelona.
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2025 (English)In: Resources, Conservation and Recycling, ISSN 0921-3449, E-ISSN 1879-0658, Vol. 212, article id 107985Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

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.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Elsevier B.V. , 2025. Vol. 212, article id 107985
Keywords [en]
Circular economy, Decentralized wastewater treatment, Industrial ecology, Life cycle assessment, Nitrogen fertilizer, Resource recovery
National Category
Environmental Sciences Environmental Management
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-356295DOI: 10.1016/j.resconrec.2024.107985Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85208039470OAI: oai:DiVA.org:kth-356295DiVA, id: diva2:1912879
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QC 20241114

Available from: 2024-11-13 Created: 2024-11-13 Last updated: 2024-11-14Bibliographically approved

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Muñoz Liesa, Joan

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