TY - JOUR
T1 - Water and nutrients recovery from synthetic source-separated human urine using AGMD
AU - Yao, Hong
AU - Hu, Zhifeng
AU - Qing, Weihua
AU - Sun, Shaobin
AU - Zhang, Wen
N1 - Funding Information:
This study was supported by the Beijing Outstanding Young Scientist Program (grant number: BJJWZYJH 01201910004016 ). Zhifeng Hu also thanks the fellowship support from China Scholarship Council (CSC) for the support of oversea study at NJIT.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2022/4
Y1 - 2022/4
N2 - Human urine is one of the largest nutrient contributors to the municipal wastewater's nutrient load, which, if not properly managed, may cause severe eutrophication in natural waters. Reclaiming the nutrients from source-separated urine could potentially substitute 20–25% of commercial fertilizers and save up to 30% of the energy consumption for biological nutrient removal. The present study investigated the performances of urine separation and water recovery using air gap membrane distillation (AGMD), which recovers water via vapor conversion and transfer across the membrane and concentrates urine salts. The effects of operation conditions (e.g., the temperatures and flow rates of feed and coolant) on water permeate flux were examined. The results show that a high permeate flux (~14 L·m−2·h−1) and a low specific ammonia transfer (< 0.1 g·L−1) were achieved under optimal operations of the feed flow rate and the temperatures. Increasing feed flow or cold coolant flow or the thermal gradients can substantially increase permeate flux. Moreover, the Stefan diffusion model was used to compare and validate the experimental observations. The actual operational parameters and membrane properties (e.g., feed/coolant temperatures, air gap thickness, and membrane thickness) were employed in the model calculation without any fitting or unknown parameters. The modeling and experimental results matched well and highlights the promising potential of this model for guiding the design and operation of this AGDM process for urine separation and water recovery.
AB - Human urine is one of the largest nutrient contributors to the municipal wastewater's nutrient load, which, if not properly managed, may cause severe eutrophication in natural waters. Reclaiming the nutrients from source-separated urine could potentially substitute 20–25% of commercial fertilizers and save up to 30% of the energy consumption for biological nutrient removal. The present study investigated the performances of urine separation and water recovery using air gap membrane distillation (AGMD), which recovers water via vapor conversion and transfer across the membrane and concentrates urine salts. The effects of operation conditions (e.g., the temperatures and flow rates of feed and coolant) on water permeate flux were examined. The results show that a high permeate flux (~14 L·m−2·h−1) and a low specific ammonia transfer (< 0.1 g·L−1) were achieved under optimal operations of the feed flow rate and the temperatures. Increasing feed flow or cold coolant flow or the thermal gradients can substantially increase permeate flux. Moreover, the Stefan diffusion model was used to compare and validate the experimental observations. The actual operational parameters and membrane properties (e.g., feed/coolant temperatures, air gap thickness, and membrane thickness) were employed in the model calculation without any fitting or unknown parameters. The modeling and experimental results matched well and highlights the promising potential of this model for guiding the design and operation of this AGDM process for urine separation and water recovery.
KW - Ammonia and water recovery
KW - Permeate flux
KW - Source-separated urine
KW - Stefan diffusion model
KW - Water vapor transfer
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jece.2022.107176
DO - 10.1016/j.jece.2022.107176
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85122924669
SN - 2213-3437
VL - 10
JO - Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering
JF - Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering
IS - 2
M1 - 107176
ER -