We could make fuel and fertiliser by recycling wastewater

 

Joel Kontinen

Can we turn wastewater into fuel?

"Wastewater, which is full of pollutants that contain nitrogen, can be directly fed into a new chemical reactor that converts it into ammonia, with purified water and oxygen as by-productsThe sustainable alternative requires much less energy than the conventional method for producing this crucial chemical.

Agriculture, refrigeration systems, paper, cleaning supplies and other industries use hundreds of millions of tonnes of ammonia every year. Making that much of the chemical uses about 2 per cent of energy total energy consumption and contributes 1.4 per cent of global carbon dioxide emission.

Some of this environmental price is due to the conventional way of producing ammonia, which requires high temperatures and pressures. To make ammonia production more sustainable, Feng-Yang Chen at Rice University in Texas and his colleagues wanted to replace that technique with a room-temperature reactor.

Their reactor takes in water mixed with nitrates – nitrogen compounds often found in wastewater, such as industrial sewage or agricultural runoff contaminated with nitrogen-based fertilisers. After the nitrate water enters the first of three chambers, electrodes, similar to those found in batteries, create an electrochemical reaction that transforms the liquid into three components: only ammonia remains in the first chamber of the reactor, while purified water flows out through the second one and oxygen goes to the third."

It is the things that are hidden in wastewater – nitrogen and ammonia that can turn wastewater into fuel.

 Source:

Karmela Padavic-Callagh, 2024. We could make fuel and fertiliser by recycling wastewater | New Scientist 12 August

Alarmist Want to Cut Nitrogen Pollution

Testing of nitrogen flux measurement methods over rice in Odisha, India. Image courtesy of Mark Sutton, Fair use doctrine.




Joel Kontinen

Nitrogen, which consist of 78 of the air that we breath, can be a toxic pollution.

Nitrous through its many forms, such as "ammonia, nitrogen dioxide oxide (that is 300 time more powerful than having carbon dioxide), and nitrate. it is polluting our air, soil and water, posing a threat to human health, biodiversity, economies and livelihoods."

They hope tackle the widespread harm it is causing to humans, wildlife and the planet.

Now, 150 top international scientists are calling for a curb to nitrogen pollution, “to tackle the widespread harm it is causing to humans, wildlife and the planet.”

They hope to tackle the nitrogen problem which is more than a carbon problem.

We don’t have Greta Thunberg, who warns us of nitrogen’s ill effects. Yet,” Nitrogen losses in UK are estimated at 1.4 million tonnes a year, at a market cost of US $1.4 billion, globally this amounts to 200 million tonnes a year at cost of US $200 billion,”. "80 per cent of nitrogen used by humans—including through crop, meat and dairy production, as well as via transport, energy, industrial and wastewater processes—is wasted and enters the environment as pollution."

The experts want to cut the use of nitrogen pollutants by 2030. God has given us nitrogen. However, we have misused it, as we have also misused some other substances with which we are blessed.

Source:

Centre for Ecology & Hydrology. 2019. We must wake up to devastating impact of nitrogen, say scientists. 2019. Phys.org (23 October).