Water Reduction and Nutrient Reconcentration of Hydrolyzed Urine via Direct-Contact Membrane Distillation: Ammonia Loss and Its Control
Publication: Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 145, Issue 3
Abstract
Water flushing increases the urine transportation cost in a source-separation system, a new concept in sustainable management of municipal wastewater. This study investigates the reduction of water and the reconcentrations of nutrients from hydrolyzed urine via direct-contact membrane distillation (DCMD), especially addressing the loss of ammonia. High rejections of phosphate and K were achieved () when hydrolyzed urine was concentrated by 17.8 times. However, total ammonia in the permeate increased to , resulting in a low rejection (31%) of total ammonia and reducing the quality of water generated. Many factors, including temperature difference, urine dilution ratio, urine pH, urea hydrolysis, and urine stabilization via nitritation, were investigated, aiming to minimize the ammonia loss. Full nitritation of urine induced low pH and reduced the concentrations of total ammonia and chemical oxygen demand. Accordingly, the rejection of total ammonia reached 94% in the concentrated urine, and solutes in the permeate water were significantly reduced. Therefore, biological stabilization of urine prior to the DCMD process is recommended for minimizing the ammonia loss and improving the quality of permeate water generated.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 2017ZY33), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51508025), and the Science and Technology Research and Development Project of China Railway Corporation (2017Z003-F).
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Published In
Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 145 • Issue 3 • March 2019
Copyright
©2018 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Apr 27, 2018
Accepted: Aug 27, 2018
Published online: Dec 24, 2018
Published in print: Mar 1, 2019
Discussion open until: May 24, 2019
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