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Context and challenges

Separating and recovering urine at the source is of particular interest for increasing the circularity of  nutrients, notably nitrogen and phosphorus since urine consists of 86% nitrogen and 60% phosphorus  per person. On the scale of a territory like Ile-de France, human excreta represent 22% of nitrogen and  13% of phosphorus inputs by synthetic fertilisers. Moreover, producing nitrogen fertilisers consumes  a lot of fossil resources since the Haber-Bosch process uses large quantities of fossil gas.  

The environmental benefits of implementing urine recovery schemes in territories can be significant:

1. Cutting back on the use of fossil resources, since producing nitrogen fertilisers relies on the Haber Bosch process, which consumes a lot of natural gas
2. Mitigating climate change thanks to a decrease  in traditional fertiliser production and a cut-back in direct greenhouse gas emissions stemming from  treating nitrogen in treatment plants.

Goal

This project is designed to study urine recovery in territories via an innovative extraction process for  use on farms, and examine how the implementation of such a structure would impact sanitation  services. It seeks to provide responses to the challenges that arise from separating urine at the source  by evaluating:

• The technical feasibility of producing one or several fertilisers from urine and their environmental  impact. A physico-chemical profile of the product will be drawn up to determine the potential of the  fertilisers produced and guide their uses. The operating data of the pilot production will also be used  to qualify the treatment process with regard to its environmental footprint;
• he territorial feasibility of urine separation with regard to deposits and uses. An inventory  of product use niches will be taken for the territory in question and urine deposits will be  mapped;
• the economic sustainability of territory-wide urine recovery for use in agriculture. The project  proposes to carry out an economic analysis that combines economic value related to environmental  amenities and positive externalities of urine recovery.

At the end of the project, it is expected that there will be better knowledge of products made from innovative urine treatment in terms of both health and economics – and of the potential of implementing a system by analysing territorial deposits and needs, as well as through economic analysis. 

Results

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INRAE and non-INRAE partners

The TEVALU project involves people from different INRAE fields, research units and divisions who are interested in finding common ground between their research in order to respond to the societal and scientific challenges of tomorrow’s cities.