Listen

Urine is primarily composed of water (about 95%), with urea (around 2%), creatinine (approximately 0.1%), uric acid (about 0.03%), and various ions. Although human urine constitutes 1% of the volume of domestic wastewater, it contains significant amounts of chemical oxygen demand (COD) (∼10%). This study focused on the elimination of COD in urine using a cross-flow filtration system and testing the effectiveness of various membranes (microfiltration (MCE01), ultrafiltration (UP005 and UP010), and nanofiltration (NP010 and NF270)). The steady-state flux of the NF270 membrane increased from 10.8 to 23.9 L/m2/h as the pressure increased from 10 to 25 bar. A significant COD removal efficiency was obtained for the NF270 membrane at an operating pressure of 25 bar. COD concentration decreased from 7,392 to 1,270 mg/L with 82.8% rejection. In contrast, none of the membranes performed well in terms of urea removal efficiency. According to the findings, urea concentration decreased from 6,712 to 6,043 mg/L with 9.9% rejection. Moreover, ion contents (calcium (Ca2+), magnesium (Mg2+), sodium (Na+), potassium (K+), ammonium (NH4+), phosphate (PO43−), sulfate (SO42−), and chloride (Cl−)) of the membrane permeates were also measured.

Listen

  • The study focuses on reducing COD from urine through a cross-flow filtration system.

  • A significant decrease in COD from 7,392 to 1,270 mg/L when the NF270 membrane was operated at 25 bar.

COD elimination, cross-flow membrane filtration, flux, human urine treatment, membrane processes
This content is only available as a PDF.
© 2024 The Authors
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY 4.0), which permits copying, adaptation and redistribution, provided the original work is properly cited (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).