Abstract
Human urine has been historically regarded unwanted in wastewater treatment plants due to its abundant and imbalance nutrients for biological treatment processes. Recently, comprehensive understanding and investigation of urine has received increasing interests to turn it into valuable resources for urine-based fertilizer production. This review aims to comprehensively evaluate the performance of forward osmosis (FO) membrane technology for urine treatment for water and nutrients recovery. Among different urine-based FO approaches, the fertilizer driven forward osmosis (FDFO) consumes less specific energy and produces higher valuable products comparing with other urine treatment technologies. But to remove micropollutants in urine, FDFO should couple with Advanced Oxidation Processes (AOPs). Moreover, the combination of FO and membrane distillation (MD) has great potential for completely recovering nutrients and water from human urine. In addition, current challenges and limitations of urine-based FO applications are discussed. Future perspectives on the development of urine-based FO applications are also proposed. It is suggested that further research should focus on developing high performance FO membranes to maximize the water flux as well as recovering nutrients and reject micropollutants in urine. Besides, there is also a great need to develop ideal environmentally friendly draw solutions to accelerate the urine-based FO applications. Above all, a comprehensive life-cycle impact assessment is needed before the large-scale application.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
