The performance and potential of faecal separation and urine diversion to recycle plant nutrients in household wastewater

The urine was collected separately in a double flushed urine-diverting toilet and the faeces were separated from the flushwater using two parallel Aquatrons. The Aquatron separates by a combination of a whirlpool effect, gravitation and surface tension. In this study, nitrogen and phosphorus from the facces were separated to 73% and 58%, respectively, to the dryer fraction. The combination of faccal separation and urine diversion in the house Ekoporten made it possible to collect 60% of N, 46% of P and 43% of K from the wastewater, indicating that this method is an alternative when aiming to recover plant nutrients while still wanting to use water-flushed, urine-diverting toilets, though the potential to collect the nutrients is much higher. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.