From the FECYT – Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology comes this hilarious bit of news pushed as serious science. I like the idea of a “potion”. It fits right up there with some of the other crazy CO2 sequestration ideas we’ve seen. Sounds like a pee bargain to me.
A urine based ‘potion’ can act as a CO2 absorbent
The ocean, the ground, rocks and trees act as carbon drains but are far from places where greenhouses gases are concentrated, especially CO2. A Spanish researcher has proposed human, agricultural and livestock waste, such as urine, as a way to absorb this gas.
Absorbing the large quantities of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases present in cities would require millions of tonnes of some naturally occurring substance. A study published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials suggests urine as a reactive. As a resource available across all human societies, it is produced in large quantities and is close to the pollution hubs of large cities.
“For every molecule of urea in urine, one mole (a chemical unit used to measure the quantity of a substance) of ammonium bicarbonate is produced along with one mole of ammonia, which could be used to absorb one mole of atmospheric CO2,” as explained to SINC by the author of the study, Manuel Jiménez Aguilar of the Institute of Agricultural and Fisheries Research and Training of the Regional Government of Andalusia.
After absorbing the CO2 another unit of ammonium bicarbonate is produced, which is used in China as a nitrogen fertilizer for 30 years. Jiménez Aguilar points out that “if applied to basic-calcium rich soils this would produce calcium carbonate thus encouraging gas-fixation in the ground.
To avoid the urine from decomposing, the researcher suggests the possibility of including a small proportion of olive waste water (a black, foul-smelling liquid obtained from spinning the ground olive paste). This acts as a preservative. The researcher confirms that “the urine-CO2-olive waste water could be considered an NPK fertilizer (ammonia-nitrate-phosphorous-potassium).”
The result is that the urine mixed with a small percentage of olive waste water can absorb various grams of CO2 per litre in a stable manner and over more than six months. According to Jiménez Aguilar, “CO2 emissions could be reduced by 1%.”
The fluid created can be inserted into domestic and industrial chimneys (reconverted into containers to accumulate the urine-olive waste water mixture) so that the greenhouse gas passes through the liquid, increasing the pressure exerted on the CO2 and thus increasing its absorption capacity.
As the scientist makes clear “these containers or chimneys should have a urine filling and emptying system and a control system to detect when the mixture has become saturated with gas.” When taken out of the chimney, the urine is stored in another container or can be channelled for its distribution and use as an agricultural fertilizer.
Making the most of urine
By applying this methodology as a greenhouse gas absorbent, the way in which industrialised countries use waste water and solid waste would never be the same again. The author hints that the whole water and waste treatment system would be reviewed to adapt newly built areas to a waste recycling and waste management system.
“In developing countries this nutrient recovery system could be implemented thanks to its environmental advantages,” says the expert.
Furthermore, urine recycling in every home would allow for nutrients to be recovered, leading to a lesser need for artificial fertilizers. Jiménez emphasises that “if urine and faeces are recycled there and then, as much as 20 litres of water per person per day could be saved and this would reduce waste water treatment costs.”
The study suggests that urine should be recycled for it to be used as fertilizer liquid and that faeces should be treated with solid organic waste to produce compost or solid fertilizers. The researcher also states in another study that is pending publication that the urine-olive waste water mixture can also be used to reduce the CO2 and NOx emissions of vehicles.
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VIDEO:
References:
Jiménez Aguilar, Manuel. “Urine as a CO2 absorbent” Journal of Hazardous Materials 213: 502-504 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2012.01.087, 30 April 2012.
I wouldn’t cross the street to piss on these morons if they were on fire.
“For every molecule of urea in urine, one mole (a chemical unit used to measure the quantity of a substance) of ammonium bicarbonate is produced
Clearly the author does not understand the difference between a mole and a molecule. Not a good start. What else did he get wrong?
considering the smell in the morning when I forget to flush at night, I don’t think I want every house in my neighbourhood to fit this to their chimney.
Could be a good solution to urbanisation and UHI though. Cities would be deserted in a matter of weeks.
I am a little bit appalled by the idea that they had a jar of urine mixed with olive waste water sitting in the lab to figure out if it held on to the CO2 or not …
(Sigh…) The Left/CAGWers have become so unhinged that it is no longer possible to tell where their reality ends and sarcasm/irony begins.
Regards,
Steamboat Jack (Jon Jewett’s evil twin)
Just googled this: http://www.urinetherapeutics.com/application.htm
We’ve been pissin’ it all away. Who woula thunk that?
There’s nothing like a couple of daily doses of piss on the rose garden to make the flowers smell good.
This gives new meaning to the term “squaters” referring to the earlier settlers in the US. Fertilized the crops and watered them too to overcome drought. I can just picture it in my mind! The cowboys and indians must have thought they were nuts!
I can hear Patchuri adressing the Spaniards now: “Urination of many people…”
And Avogadro’s number is 1-800-622-1023.
Mind your P’s:
2011 “The antiplatelet activity of camel urine.” (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21854200 )
2010 “The inhibitory effect of camel’s urine on mycotoxins and fungal growth” (http://academicjournals.org/ajar/PDF/pdf%202010/4%20Jun/Al-Abdalall.pdf)
2004 “Theraputic Use of Urine in Early Indian Medicine” (http://www.new.dli.ernet.in/rawdataupload/upload/insa/INSA_1/2000c951-415.pdf)
Rural tropical agriculture use of cow urine ( from Dr. K. Natarajan, email: rcango@yahoo.com):
a) mix 5 Kg. fresh cow manure + 1/2 Kg. clarified butter (“ghee”) in plastic/clay container, stir 2x/d for 4 days
b) add w/mixing 3 liter cow urine + 2 liter cooled boiled milk + 2 liter milk curd + 12 mashed ripe bananas + 3 liter green coconut water + 3 liter sugar cane juice (or “jaggery” crude sugar cake);
mix 2x/d for 20 minutes over 15 days
c) after total 19 days ready to use, makes about 20 liters so 1x/d remember to stir unused portion (cover with cloth to keep out insects)
d) Use every 15 days as foliar feed 200 mL filtered stock/10 liter H2O or as ground fertilizer 1 liter stock/10 liter H2O
Non-tropical agriculture use of cow urine:
a) 5 Kg. fresh dung + 1 Kg. clarified butter + 5 liter cow urine + 3 liter milk curd + 3 liter clean milk + 5 liter H2O
b) mix together above ingredients & at least 1x/d stir thoroughly for 15 days, cover with cloth against insects & daily stir unused portion
c) Use monthly as foliar feed 1 part filtered stock to 10 part H2O
Well, talk about p****ng away our inheritance on crazy climate schemes.
If I ever get caught short while out an about I know what to tell the policeman now.
I’m saving the environment by sequestering CO2 – I doubt he’ll be convinced ‘though.
Don’t know if it has been mentioned . . . but, I was reading some book the other day . . . and they used to collect the stuff and sell it for a bleaching agent in the “olden days!” S-crap like that just sticks in my brain for some reason . . . I would have to re-“research” it to post a link . . . so no source citing on this one . . .
Cheaper to pipe it to the farmer’s fields or the forest and let it take its own CO2. I don’t see any back of the envelope calculations – could be like the marginal effect of wind turbines. I guess Spain has created all the green jobs it can and is now working on yellow.
@ur momisugly Luther Wu who says:
August 17, 2012 at 2:58 pm
Insert urine into chimneys?
Insert urine over the camp fire to “mop it up”?
I say it was the inadverdent invention of explosives . . . as many a camp site was re-used in the “olden days”! I can see it in my minds eye now! Samething – Onlydifferent!
What the hell is that . . . . about?
“The study suggests that urine should be recycled for it to be used as fertilizer liquid and that faeces should be treated with solid organic waste to produce compost or solid fertilizers.”
About the only sensible part of the article. Fear of spreading disease inhibits use of human excrement as fertilizer, but modern technology can sterilize sewage and change it from a nuisance into a resource.
If I say “I’m pissed off”, am I committing a crime against humanity, or just ….?
“Laurie Bowen says:
August 18, 2012 at 11:56 am”
Tony Robinson, AKA “Baldrick”, did a really interesting TV series call the “Worst Jobs in History”.
The Confederate South had difficulties procuring raw materials to support their efforts during the Civil War and potassium nitrate aka saltpeter or nitre, so necessary to gunpowder was highly sought after… until an inventor named John Harrelson devised a method of extraction from urine, which spawned bawdy lyrics form both sides of the conflict.
From the South:
John Harrelson, John Harrelson, you are a wretched creature,
You’ve added to this bloody war a new and awful feature,
You’d have us think while every man is bound to be a fighter,
The ladies, bless their pretty dears, should save their piss for nitre,
John Harrelson, John Harrelson, where did you get this notion,
To send your barrel around the town to gather up this lotion,
We thought the girls had work enough in making shirts and kissing,
But you have put the pretty dears to patriotic pissing,
John Harrelson, John Harrelson, do pray invent a neater
And somewhat less immodest mode of making your saltpeter,
For “tis an awful idea, John, gunpowdery and cranky,
That when a lady lifts her skirt, she’s killing off a Yankee.
and in response, from the North:
John Harrelson, John Harrelson, we’ve read in song and story
How a women’s tears, through all the years, have moistened fields of glory,
But never was it told before, how, ‘mid such scenes of slaughter,
Your Southern beauties dried their tears and went to making water,
No wonder that your boys are brave, who couldn’t be a fighter,
If every time he shot a gun he used his sweethearts nitre?
And, vice-versa, what could make a Yankee soldier sadder,
Than dodging bullets fired by a pretty woman’s bladder.
They say there is a subtle smell
That lingers in the powder;
That when the smoke grows thicker,
And the din of the battle louder
That there is found to this compound
One serious objection;
A soldier can not sniff it
Without having an erection.
I already have a septic system for my home, thank you.
I am a wee bit pissed by this piddleing study
Ooooo… bother. One of my previous jobs was as the conceptual designer/cost estimator for the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) National Fertilizer Development Center (NFDC) – a long-gone national lab. For context the TVA-National Fertilizer Development Center (NFDC) was the United State’s leading national lab in the area of fertilizer development from the mid 1930’s through the early 1990’s. It was also the leading developer of fluid fertilizers.
In this position I was periodically tasked with considering and responding to public “ideas” to produce fertilizers – as well as evaluating the potential of internally developed ideas. In practical terms this meant I worked, daily, with the U.S. leading experts in fluid fertilizers.
Inevitably someone in the public-sphere would come up with the “bright idea” of using urine as fertilizer. This usually came with some eco-friendly twist. The difficulty, it seems, is that the
“green” type individual that typically made such proposals never could quit grasp that to produce a viable commercial liquid fertilizer one had to overcome certain practical obstacles.
Specifically that the keys to producing economical nitrogen solutions are: 1) that the solutions be low in water content and high in nitrogen (N) content , 2) have a low salt-out temperature (i.e. any potential solid phases don’t precipitate out of the solution), 3) Should not have a storage pressure issues, 4) can be easily be applied in a commercial agricultural setting. The problem with urine-derived solutions is they don’t have any of these characteristics.
Let’s hit issue 1 first. The water content of urine is about 95% by weight. The high water content presents two problems.
First the high water content makes urine-derived solutions uneconomical to transport in commercial markets – much less get the farmer to buy it. One must consider that urine would be competing with Urea/Ammonium Nitrate (UAN) solutions. UAN-32 solution, for example, is composed of 45% ammonium nitrate, 35% urea and 20% water by weight. Depending of the grade, commercial UAN solutions have between 32-28% available nitrogen.
This compares to urine with a “raw” urea content of 2-4%. A 2-4% urea solution would have 0.92-1.84% available N. I have seen indications that about 59% of the nitrogen in urine is initially present as urea. Although I’ve never been sure how much nitrogen is this is actually “available” for agricultural purposes.
I have seen claims of urine having an available nitrogen content of 11-15% (See for example Zsofia Granrot’s “Urine processing for efficient nutrient recovery and reuse in agriculture”). But, I have not been able to reconcile these figures with the low urea content commonly reported by the medical community. Possibly the authors were referring to concentrated urine solution. But, for the purposes of this conversation, it makes no difference. (And to be fair, I didn’t spend much time trying to figure it out). The bottom line is that the nitrogen content is too low to be commercially viable.
Second there are degradation issues. The high water content of urine combined with its chemical makeup inevitability leads to the degradation of the nitrogen containing chemicals in urine via rapid urease catalyzed hydrolysis via the reaction.
(NH2)2CO (urea) + H2O => 2NH3 + CO2
The degraded ammonia and carbon dioxide can reform into carbonates at ambient temperatures and pressures via the following example reactions:
(NH2)2CO (urea) + H2O NH2COONH4 (ammonium carbamate)
NH2COONH4 2NH3 + CO2
NH2COONH4 + H2O (NH4)2CO3 (ammonium carbonate) + O2
(NH4)2CO3 2 NH3 + CO2 + H2O
(NH4)HCO3 (ammonium bicarbonate) NH3 + CO2 + H2O
However, all of these reactions tend to the right at atmospheric pressure; so loss of ammonia to the atmosphere tends to proceed rapidly in urine-derived solutions. And one should note that the breakdown of urea would continue nicely along the carbonate routes – even if the urease reaction were inhibited.
In comparison, the water content of UAN solutions is about 20% by weight and the underlying chemistry is different. So UAN solutions simply do not encounter these issues.
Next let’s hit issue 2 – salt out temperature. The salt-out temperature is the temperature which a given a solution will begin to precipitate solids.
Commercial UAN solutions have high nitrogen contents and the low salt-out temperatures. For example the salt-out temperatures for:
UAN 28-0-0 is 1°F (28% N).
UAN 30-0-0 is 14°F (30% N)
UAN 32-0-0 is 28°F (32% N)
In contrast a pure 32.5% urea solution (with 15% N) has a salt-out temperature of 12 F. The salt-out temperatures increase with increasing concentration. For example, a 40% urea solution (with 18.5% N) has a salt-out temperature of 32 F.
As you can see, commercial UAN solutions are much easier to store in winter conditions than urine (urea) based solutions; because, the solids are less likely to precipitate out of solution in cold weather. And they have substantially higher nitrogen contents.
In addition, with urine, you have the potential for carbonates to be present. Unfortunately, there is a limit to the amount of carbonates one can add to a solution. For example, the solubility of ammonium carbamate in water is only about 40% by weight at 68 F (although the percent can be increased by adding ammonia). The other carbonates have similar issues.
What this means, in practical terms, is that the ability of urea and carbonate solutions to “store” usable nitrogen is severely limited by their physical properties. Add too much urea, or any member of the ammonium carbonate family, and one risks getting large amounts of precipitated solids in the storage tank in which the fluid might be stored. In other words one risks ending up with an unusable storage tank (filled with difficult to remove crystals); plugged pipes, etc.
Another issue is urine’s tendency to produce struvite (NH2MgPO2 * 6H2) – a colorless crystal with a low solubility in water. Stuvite crystal growth creates both maintenance and operational issues in waste water treatment plants. It would be a nightmare for farmers and fertilizer dealers.
I also see a problem with the researcher’s suggestion to process their fluid by “inserted into domestic and industrial chimneys”. Any gas stack produced using coal or wood (or say any bio-waste) is going to contain a good deal of calcium. If the industrial “stack“ has a dry or wet flue gas desulphurization system, as calcium will be present in form of carried over lime or limestone. Calcium present in nitrogen solutions is known to produce sticky insoluble precipitates which will to promptly gum up spray nozzles, storage tanks, and pipes, etc.
Next let’s hit issue 3 – storage pressures. UAN solutions do not produce the off-gassing that would lead to a requirement to store the solutions in pressured tanks. However, tanks containing solution mixtures containing urine, ammonium cabamate, ammonium bicarbonate, and ammonium carbonate must be pressurized to contain the potential for ammonia off-gassing.
Heating the tanks to prevent winter salt-out only increases the potential for ammonia production and increases storage tank cost – due to increased risk of tank pressurization. For example, at temperatures of greater than 140 F, carbonate mixtures typically decompose completely into ammonia and carbon dioxide. And at the interface between a tank heater and the fluid local temperature in excess of 140 F will likely be encountered.
Next let’s hit issue 4 – easily application. This is largely inter-related to the degradation and salt-out issues described above. Any solids suspended in the solution the farmer gets can and does lead to plugged sprayers… when the farmer attempts to apply the solution on to his fields. The problem is particularly acute in the late fall and early spring planting scenarios.
Typically a fertilizer dealer begins to build his fluid inventories in the early fall and later winter – in preparation for the sales for planting the spring crop. So salt-out, even if limited to solids suspended in the solution only, represents a significant financial risk to both the farmer and the dealer. In contrast clear UAN solutions can be used with far less risk of salt-out.
In short, the idea’s… a bit too academic.
Regards,
Kforestcat
Well shoot. Despite my best efforts the carbonate-related reaction symbols for equilibrium didn’t get thru the editor right. Here’s a 2nd try.
NH2)2CO (urea) + H2O NH2COONH4 (ammonium carbamate)
H2COONH4 2NH3 + CO2
NH2COONH4 + H2O (NH4)2CO3 (ammonium carbonate) + O2
(NH4)2CO3 2 NH3 + CO2 + H2O
(NH4)HCO3 (ammonium bicarbonate) NH3 + CO2 + H2O
Regards,
Kforestcat
Well bother. Sorry Moderator, It happend again.
All. Ok here are the equations without equilibrium signs
NH2)2CO (urea) + H2O => NH2COONH4 (ammonium carbamate)
H2COONH4 => 2NH3 + CO2
NH2COONH4 + H2O => (NH4)2CO3 (ammonium carbonate) + O2
(NH4)2CO3 => 2 NH3 + CO2 + H2O
(NH4)HCO3 (ammonium bicarbonate) => NH3 + CO2 + H2O
Regards,
Kforestcat