Running short on cooking fuel? Just pressure cook your poop!
Why should it go waste? Israeli researchers spell out how to turn human waste into a clean, cheap and sustainable source of energy.
Done with your morning business? Wait! Don’t flush!
Scoop the poop in a pressure cooker, heat it — and voila! You have just created fuel to cook your next meal or heat your home this winter.
Don’t be grossed out —a group of Israeli researchers have discovered the scope of poop as a fuel after extensive research. The research team was headed by Dr Amit Gross.
The report was released on Monday — coinciding with World Toilet Day — by researchers from the Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU).
Dr Gross’s team discovered that heating raw solid human waste in a designated "pressure cooker", using a process called hydrothermal carbonization (HTC), converts the excreta into hydrochar — a safe, reusable biomass fuel resembling charcoal. The team subjected the poop to three temperatures — 180, 210 and 240°C, and reaction times — 30, 60 and 120 minutes. The solids become dehydrated, creating combustible solid hydrochar, and a nutrient-rich aqueous phase liquid byproduct that could be used as a fertilizer.
"Human excreta are considered hazardous due to their potential to transmit disease. While it is rich in organic matter nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, human waste also contains micropollutants from pharmaceuticals, which can lead to environmental problems if not disposed or reused properly," says Dr Gross — the newly appointed director of the Zuckerberg Institute.
The Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the United Nations (UNSDGs) in 2015 lists ‘clean water and sanitation’ as Goal 6 and ‘affordable and clean energy’ as Goal 7 in its blueprint for the ‘2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’. "By treating human waste properly, we can address both — sanitation and energy scarcity — at once," Dr Gross adds.
A single person yields about 145 kilograms of poop in a year. Now multiply this by 7.7 billion people on the planet and you get about 1116.5 billion kilograms of human faeces.
Don’t be squeamish!
Your poop is worth in gold if utilised properly.
According to the UN Institute for Water, Environment and Health, methane produced by organically breaking down human faeces would be worth the equivalent of $9.5 billion. In fact, the city of Grand Junction in Colorado, USA, is processing eight million gallons (approximately 2.58 million kilograms) of human waste into biomethane — that is then used to fuel about 40 fleet vehicles, including garbage trucks, street sweepers, dump trucks and transit buses.
More recently, a private company in Nakuru, Kenya started manufacturing briquettes with human faeces for use in cooking and heating. The fuel is made by drying and treating the poop in a kiln and carbonising it with sawdust at 300°C, eventually pressing it into balls that are then sold by the kilo.
Scientists were sceptical about both these methods.
Using methane from excrement as a major fuel source was unviable as it is one of the most potent greenhouse gases — about 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
Similarly, the Kenyan process of faecal briquettes used more fuel in being treated in a kiln and created more smoke in the manufacturing process than the energy conserved.
However, Dr Gross’s research is now being increasingly seen as making poop-power a more sustainable, clean, cheap and safe source of energy. If capitalised properly, Dr Gross's research could result in your gross income going up every morning you take a dump!
Data from the World Energy Council states that about 2.6 billion people worldwide use solid biomass, especially wood, which is converted to charcoal, then used for cooking and heating. Besides leaving a huge footprint on the environment, the exposure to indoor smoke from cooking fuels cause 4.3 million deaths every year — primarily women and children, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
With energy scarcity posing a major challenge for the developing world, besides non-renewable fuel causing a host of environmental hazards including air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation and soil erosion, Dr Gross’s research might be the solution to sanitation, energy and environmental problems.
Poop and prosper!