Stanford University researchers have built a photovoltaic thermal electrochemical comic system that gets nutrients for fertilizers from human urine. They say that the system could offer a cost -effective alternative in regions with limited access to conventional fertilizers.
A Stanford University research team has developed a prototype that uses solar energy to extract nutrients from human urine to create a sustainable fertilizer.
They presented the system in “Prototyping and modeling of a photovoltaic -thermal electrochemical comic strip system for distributed urine sough recovery“Available in the research diary Natural water.
The prototype uses solar energy via a photovoltaic thermal electrocrochemic strip system to catch nitrogen, an important part of commercial fertilizers, of human water waste. The nitrogen in human urine worldwide is equal to about 14% of the annual demand for fertilizer.
The researchers said in a explanation that the system separates ammonia, a chemical connection that consists of nitrogen and hydrogen, of urine. This is done through a series of rooms separated by membranes that use solar electricity to float ions and catch the ammonia as an ammonium sulfate, a common fertilizer.
The researchers collected waste heat from the back of solar panels through an attached copper tube cold plate to heat the liquid used in the electrochemical process. They thought that this helped to speed up global warming and encouraged the production of ammoniakga, the last step in the divorce process.
The use of waste heat from solar panels appeared to increase their power generation by almost 60%, while the ammonia recovery efficiency was improved by more than 20% compared to earlier prototypes.
Orisa Coombs, main author of the research, explained that despite the fact that every person produces sufficient nitrogen in his urine to fertilize a garden, a large part of the world depends on expensive, imported fertilizers. “You don’t need a huge chemical plant or even a wall connection,” Coombs added. “With sufficient sunshine you can produce fertilizer where it is needed and possibly even store or sell excess electricity.”
The research also has a model that is designed to understand how changes in sunlight, temperature and electric configuration would influence the performance of the system.
It turned out that in regions such as Uganda, the prototype system restored to $ 4.13/kg of nitrogen, could generate more than double the potential income in the United States. This helped the researchers to conclude that their system is a viable, cost -effective alternative to traditional fertilizers, in particular in areas where access to agricultural input is limited and where fertilizer remains expensive.
Stanford University said that the removal of nitrogen from urine makes the remaining liquid safer to discharge or reuse for irrigation, which it adds can be a “game changer in many countries where only a small percentage of the population is connected to centralized sewage systems”.
“We often consider water, food and energy as fully separate systems, but this is one of those rare cases in which engineering innovation can help solve several problems at the same time,” Coombs said. “It is clean, it is scalable and it is literally powered by the sun.”
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