A team of chemists and agriculture specialists has developed a way to transform urea in wastewater, into percarbamide, which can be used as a fertilizer. In their paper published in the journal Nature Catalysis, the group describes their process and how well the resulting product worked in growing edible crops.
Urine is seen as a source of fertilizer because it is high in nitrogen and other rich compounds that are good for plant growth. Many home gardeners know that urine can be used as a fertilizer both for flower and vegetable gardens—the key is to mix it with a lot of water to prevent burning the plants.
Prior efforts to use urine as a source of fertilizer on a larger scale, however, have proven to be unfeasible due to industrial inefficiencies; it is much easier to use standard methods that involve extracting nitrogen from the air. In this new effort, the researchers have developed a way to use human and animal urine as a fertilizer for growing edible crops.
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