NECESSITY (Next gEneration sourCE Separating SanItaTion sYstem)

The overall aim is to develop the next generation of source-separating sanitation systems for low-income settings, where freshly excreted human urine is separately collected and safely treated at the toilet.

The separated fresh urine is stabilised in a low-tech reactor where it is passively dosed with novel alkaline earth chemical pellets.

This allows stabilised urine to be transported from households with zero nutrient loss for further treatment in a centralised dryer that produces high-quality solid fertilisers.

The focus of the planned research is to develop pellets for the reactor that capture all the nutrients in urine (especially nitrogen), while removing organics pollutants and malodour-causing substances from urine. The bulk of the pellet is made of low-cost chemical stabilisers which are globally available.

The pellets will be evaluated against real-life aspects and natural contaminants before they are field-tested in a household-scale reactor.

The piloting will be done in an urban area in Bolivia where urine diverting systems with central collection of urine and faeces exists.