Re:40% of US lithium needs could come from wastewater
by everforward on Thursday May 16, 2024 @11:19AM
(#40379475)
I would have thought biological contamination was an issue. I, perhaps foolishly, presumed wastewater treatment plants would be fairly good at removing heavy metals.
Biological contamination seemed like a bigger issue to me since the solids could be re-colonized post-processing.
Maybe this is a more processed product than I’m thinking of. Surely their not selling literal bags of poop, maybe it no longer resembles human feces enough for bacteria?
Re:40% of US lithium needs could come from wastewater
by pfdietz on Thursday May 16, 2024 @12:06PM
(#40380008)
It's the stuff that's left after anaerobic, then aerobic, bacteria have chowed down on the sewage. It's basically dead bacteria. Any pathogens would have become food for these decomposers.
I think I'd also worry about residual drugs. Some don't break down quickly.
Re:40% of US lithium needs could come from wastewater
by hi-v-rocknroll on Thursday May 16, 2024 @05:31PM
(#40383470)
Maybe we should rethink wastewater streams for selective recycling: stormwater, graywater, blackwater, and yellowwater. Perhaps the latter two should be recycled where possible and then residual wastes close-loop incinerated to prevent leeching any sort of biologically-active molecules or pathogens into the environment.
Re:40% of US lithium needs could come from wastewater
by pfdietz on Saturday May 18, 2024 @07:51AM
(#40398219)
The quantity of drugs in the waste stream is surprising. For example: I take 1000 mg daily of metformin. Although I have (of course) never measured it, a person produces 100 to 250 g/day of fecal matter. This is 75% water, so reasonably my excreta, on a dry basis, is up to 4% metformin(!). Metformin is largely excreted and breaks down in the environment only slowly, so it would contribute significantly to the nitrogen figure for waste-derived fertilizer.
Wikipedia says this:
"Metformin and its major transformation product guanylurea are present in wastewater treatment plant effluents and regularly detected in surface waters. Guanylurea concentrations above 200 μg/L have been measured in the German river Erpe, which are amongst the highest reported for pharmaceutical transformation products in aquatic environments."
https://www.milorganite.com/
The primary concern with waste solids would be the presence of heavy metals, I think, but those shouldn't be getting into the waste water stream anyway. Heavy metals are a concern anyway in phosphate fertilizer; many deposits of phosphorites have troublesome amounts of cadmium.