Abstract
The recovery of organic fertilizers from human urine as one of the solutions for the sustainable management of effluents and sanitation can be very promising, by the strategy of reuse urban wastewater, combined with the development of agricultural input. The aim of this study was to conduct a bibliometric analysis of the publications available in the ScienceDirect and Wiley Online Library databases on the subject of human urine nutrient recovery for the period from 1999 to 2020 to respond whether human urine recycling can improve cities resilience, through urban water management has the potential to become a competitive solution in the Agri-Food global market based on scientific findings. The process of bibliometric analysis exploring databases were divided in 8 steps: 1) Key-word selection, 2) Period selection, 3) Database selection, 4) Scanning the publications, 5) Removal of duplicates, 6) Verification of publications, 7) Selection of the publications with the highest adherence, 8) Final classification. A total of 985 scientific publications were selected from the Wiley Online Library and 996 from Science Direct. Out of these, only 45 were selected for being potentially aligned with urine recycling technologies relate to water management in a worldwide perspective. Human urine as a bio-fertilizer has the potential to the Agribusiness market, based on statistical data analysis, however to become a marketable product, especially in low-middle income countries, sustainability assessment studies of urine technologies, integrating economic, social and environmental aspects are needed.
Highlights
The pollution of urban water by the discharge of effluents exposes the population to diseases associated with the quality of the water consumed, such as cholera, typhoid fever, and diarrhea
We explored recycling human urine technologies trends in Agri-Food sector and forecasts by means of bibliometric analysis from 1999 to 2020, to elucidate whether it has the potential to become a competitive solution in the global Agri-Food market based on scientific findings
The first publication identified was evaluate as medium adherence to the research according to the criteria previously established entitled "Exergy Analysis: A Comparison of Source Separation Systems and Conventional Treatment Systems" (Hellström, 2005) whose scope was based on the influence of physical factors such as: system size, concentration of collected human urine and type of agricultural crop, concluding that the total exergy consumption is lower in systems with waste separation
Summary
The pollution of urban water by the discharge of effluents exposes the population to diseases associated with the quality of the water consumed, such as cholera, typhoid fever, and diarrhea. It is estimated that the water savings in these systems can reach up to 900 m3 per year, as well as reducing nutrient loading in wastewater treatment systems (Molina-Sanchéz et al, 2018; Senecal & Vinneräs, 2017; Simha et al, 2018; Marques et al, 2021; Cheng et al, 2018; Langergraber & Muellegger, 2005) In this context, researchers around the world are studying the potential of producing organic fertilizer out of human urine, once the nutritional contents are equivalent to commercial synthetic fertilizers, nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) in the following proportions: N (>10%), P (>1.5%) and K (>5%) (Vinneräs, 2002; Dutta & Vinneräs, 2016; Albertsson, 2008; Salguero-Puerta et al, 2019). Besides the sustainable advantages of this technology, it can be pointed out as advantages the drop of nutrient deficiency in soil and plants (Guzha et al, 2005) and the lower concentration of non-essential heavy metals (Cd, Hg, Pb) in the final product (Wohlsager, 2010; Karak & Bhattacharyya, 2011)
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