Reference Documents

Saturday, May 09, 2020

Future Gold In Pee!

"....it's possible to extract 70 liters of fertilizer and 930 liters of water from 1,000 liters of urine within two to three days. That's enough to irrigate and fertilize 2,000 square meters of soil."

Sounds nuts doesn't it? I guess the world is running out of a key fertilizer ingredient phosphorus, and instead of destructively tearing into the earth as they do in Morocco, China, Jordan, South Africa and countries in the Western Sahara to find this stuff, we can mine it right at home! (I had to find a conversion for liters which makes me a bit nuts that my education was so deficient—anyway, the word reminded me of the capacity in a British car engine especially if spelled "litres"—3.7854118 liters equals one gallon.....which reminded me of my first car, a 1957 Mark VIII Jaguar, saloon model [3.4 litres] for which I paid only $800. You don't want to know just when that was.)

The word "struvite" appears in the article. Had to look that up too.

"Struvite is the most common mineral found in urinary tract stones in dogs, and is found also in urinary tract stones of cats and humans.”
Further research revealed that this stuff clogs up the pipes in lift stations, just not urinary tracts!

I found that out watching the video link below. Prepare to isolate yourself elsewhere if anyone around you is sleeping. I laughed out loud a full two minutes until my trachea squeaked. It was the music that did it. I'm still laughing, I can barely type! Clearly they should have consulted our county staff for music to accompany a sewer video (who nailed it)!



Back to pee. From the article linked below:
"Germany's Fraunhofer Institute is developing a process that would allow phosphorus to be separated from sewage sludge with the help of a high-performance ultrasound."
Take a look, this is fascinating! Maybe years down the road, we will find our little sewer plant is a teeny gold mine!

https://www.dw.com/en/phosphorus-in-our-pee-the-new-gold/a-53225198

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