Professional Education

Food for plants

‘I have always wanted to specialise in water, but I had not decided what exactly in water. The drought that Cape Town experienced became a lens through which I could view water. Initially I was interested in the management of water, but the idea of viewing urine as a resource pushed the boundaries; to say that waste streams such as urine can help solve the water issue and at the same time be useful as fertiliser, for example. That which drew me closer to the project was its nature. It is original and it encourages a change of mind-set for all of society.’

Lerato Maduna

These are the words of Mwana Mwale, a master’s degree candidate at the Department of Civil Engineering, University of Cape Town. Mwale, the top student in UCT Civil Engineering Honours class 2019, is celebrating a second place win for her research thesis in the South African Institution of Civil Engineering (SAICE) National Investigative Project (IP) Showdown. Urine contains the nutrients required for plant growth. It comprises about 80% nitrogen, 70% potassium and 50% phosphorous. With these nutrients, fertiliser can be produced from the urine. The idea is that the fertiliser will be used to grow plants, hence, assist with food production. The more the supply, the less the cost for society.

As a young civil engineer, Mwale likes to keep an open mind about her career going forward.

‘A career for me will be one that is led by opportunities that have presented themselves and speak to the kind of impact I want to have within a certain area. To say I see myself as a civil engineer in the future, will be very limiting. The skills I acquire and the type of thinking I develop within the space I find myself in are the things I will carry forward in the journey of my career,’ she admits. So, just what does it take to be the recipient of the SAICE award? We asked Mwale about her background and what drives her in her profession.

‘I am from the East Rand in Gauteng, from Daveyton. I consider myself fortunate to have lived with both my parents and my older brother. Love, respect, obedience, discipline and many other moral values were constantly reaffirmed during my upbringing. I would describe myself as a typical daddy’s girl. My father studied electrical engineering and being around him sparked my curiosity for mathematics and science,’ she says.

Mwale also has an interest in playing football, influenced by her brother, and in all things mathematical. She is lucky to have the support of an extensive family who are right behind her. Her mother taught her discipline and helped make her what she is today. Of the rest, she says: ‘The list is endless when it comes to family because everyone – my grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, schoolteachers, friends – have all had a great impact in my life.’

The project ‘Urine also contains about 65% of the pharmaceuticals we as humans ingest, so we wanted to see if we could remove them, thus making any products we produce safer,’ Mwale explains.

‘Conventional wastewater treatment systems do not usually remove pharmaceuticals from wastewater. This is especially relevant when we want to recycle and reuse wastewater. By trying to remove the pharmaceuticals upfront from the processes, allows us to design better sanitation systems for the future.’

In 2017, Mwale’s academic supervisor, senior lecturer Dr Dyllon Randall, and student Craig Flanagan, had developed a fertiliser-producing urinal that uses no water and does not have to be connected to a sewage line to operate. The urinal works by increasing the pH of the urine via the addition of calcium hydroxide.

With the help of a senior lecturer in pharmaceuticals at UWC, Mwale researched whether such a high operating pH would also degrade the pharmaceuticals present in the urine, thus providing a safer product. She did, however, find that the pharmaceuticals would degrade far more quickly than anticipated and that the resource as collected through fertiliser-producing urinals, will in all likelihood naturally degrade during storage with no additional treatment.

What is important about this research? ‘The uses we had in mind when the concept was first introduced were local farmers. The fertiliser-production urinal that was developed by Flanagan & Randall (2018) offers a cheap and economic way to produce fertilisers. This will give the local farmers a competitive edge and will help them compete in the market. The urinal recovers 11.23 ± 1.3g of solid fertiliser per kg of urine, but we can also make a liquid fertiliser,’ Mwale explains.

This finding further justifies why the separation of urine and faeces at source is so crucial for future sanitation systems. Mwale’s work also has implications for the removal of pharmaceuticals from various types of wastewaters, which is especially relevant when the recycling and reuse of wastewater are taken into consideration.

notes

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