Urine luck: Environmental assessment of yellow water management in buildings for urban agricultureShow others and affiliations
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
Note
QC 20241114
2024-11-132024-11-132024-11-14Bibliographically approved