Most people will not drink urine of their own free will, unless they are stuck for days in a desert and dehydrated enough to have second thoughts. But University of Ghent scientists see a potential in urine that should be exploited.
"We're able to recover fertilizer and drinking water from urine using just a simple process and solar energy," said University of Ghent researcher Sebastiaan Derese.
In the solar-powered process, urine is heated in a tank before being passed through a membrane separating the water from nutrients, including potassium, nitrogen and phosphorus.
The concept is also ideal for summer music festivals, which suffer from the challenges of wastewater logistics. Recently, the team deployed one of its distillers at a 10-day music and theatre festival in central Ghent, under the slogan #peeforscience, where the project was a great success, recycling 1,000 liters of water from urine collected at the event. This water is slated to be used to make Belgian beer.
"We call it from sewer to brewer," Derese joked.
A preference was stated for using the water to make wine coolers, as anything could be considered to be an improvement.