Urine-diversion Systems:A Promising Alternative To Conventional Sanitation Systems?

The basic concept of urine-diversion sanitation, and its current status and future potential of research and implementation in the world were systematically investigated in this thesis, and aimed at giving some supports to interested companies. This thesis starts with applicability in Europe and broadens its scope to developing and fastindustrializing countries, and especially to China. The objective of this thesis is to present urine-diversion sanitation systems, as well as to highlight the potential interests and challenges associated with the implementation of such systems. Categories of areas in which urine-diversion sanitation could potentially be interesting are identified.The conventional sanitation system presents important shortcomings. Urinediversion is a very interesting alternative that could contribute to overcoming the shortcomings of the conventional municipal wastewater management system. Potential interests of urine-diversion sanitation are numerous. The main ones are related to nutrient management. They include better and more efficient nutrient removal and recovery, and it can also lead to more flexibility, especially if a decentralized to some extent system is implemented. However, urine-diversion is also faced with some challenges. Major technical challenges include urine transportation as well as the development of competitive treatment and recovery technologies for source-separated streams. Acceptance of urine-based fertilizers seems quite challenging and fertilizer safety issues need be addressed. If urine-diversion is implemented in a to some extent decentralized way, challenges related to load variation, automation, and costs arise. Besides, innovation in the infrastructure sector is difficult because of the need for large investments, long lifetime expectancy, and the need for uninterrupted service provision. Urine-diversion sanitation implementation is especially difficult because it would not only affect the sanitation infrastructure but also the building infrastructure. A company that considers business development on this market should be well aware of these challenges.Most interesting cases for implementation of urine-diversion sanitation are new housing development areas especially in areas where the capacity of the current sanitation system is too small to manage the extra wastewater produced or where there is no connection to a sewer system. Urine-diversion would also be especially interesting for areas faced with pressing environmental issues. Areas where building infrastructure requires retrofitting and areas where the sanitation infrastructure is ageing could also be interesting for implementation of urine-diversion in the future. There is still a long way before urine-diversion could potentially be deployed on large scale and this is mostly related to a lack of maturity of treatment and recovery solutions. However, much progress has been done in recent years. Given the sanitation situation and general context of China, it could be one of the areas in the world where urine-diversion could have the most potential, and where it could be tested and implemented first before potential widespread diffusion to other places in the world such as Europe for example.This thesis concludes that urine-diversion sanitation would be a change of paradigm and that its implementation may not be successful. However, given the potential of this concept, the important shortcomings of the conventional sanitation system, it might be a good idea for a water company to invest in the development of treatment technologies for urine-diversion sanitation systems. Nonetheless, given the technical challenges faced by these systems, further research is needed. Research and development on treatment and recovery technologies and urine transportation solutions should be the focus of a company that considers business development of urinediversion sanitation systems because these systems are not ready for large-scale implementation in urban areas yet. Besides, the potential for development in developing and fast-industrializing countries being much bigger than the one in Europe in the short term, if a company is considering business development of such systems, it could be a good idea for this company to first focus on developing and fastindustrializing countries.