Abstract:
Increasing population growth and rapid urbanisation is placing increasing pressure on existing water infrastructure and agricultural food productivity to meet future supply and demand. The World Bank predicts that by 2050, the global population will be nine billion, placing a 50% increase in agricultural food productivity and 15% increase in water withdrawals. With these fertilise shortages, there is a strong market driver for bioavailable nutrients through a renewable approach. Decentralising the treatment of our wastes is especially interesting as it has the potential of making an industry, notoriously thirsty in energy, water and raw materials, a net producer. It was also demonstrated that the integration of source-separation of urine, faeces and greywater would help to achieve this goal, while also opening new opportunities for building a more flexible and resilient urban wastewater network. Urine valorisation is attractive due to its low volume, high nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) concentrations (80% of N and 50% of P inputs into sewers), and relative ease of collection and storage. As such, it has often proven to be a suitable raw material from the production of fertiliser, energy and water (this last one mainly on board of the International Space Station). However, conventional technologies often struggle in dealing with urine alkalinity, high NH3 and dissolved organic carbon concentration (i.e. 5 to 10 g.L-1) and high salinity (i.e. 4 to 9%). That is why, the strong chemical resistance, small footprint, tuneable selectivity and versatility in the operation of processes makes them an ideal technology to extract value from human urine. As such, this presentation will cover four main research themes from the ARC Research Hub for Nutrients in a Circular Economy (ARC NiCE Hub) in terms of economic, commercial, environmental and societal benefits. Further, resource recovery from seawater brine will be presented to further achieve a circular economy from seawater brine.

Bio:
Professor Ho Kyong Shon holds the position of Director at the Australian Research Council (ARC) Research Hub for Nutrients in a Circular Economy (ARC NiCE Hub). Concurrently, he serves as the Head of Discipline for Environmental and Water Engineering and assumes the role of Deputy Director and Founding Member of the Center for Technology in Water and Wastewater Treatment (CTWW) at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). His extensive research journey, initiated in 2000, encompasses a diverse array of interests such as circular economy, membrane technologies, water treatment processes for water reuse and desalination, resource recovery, environmental nanomaterials, physico-chemical processes, and environmental applications.

Professor Shon is actively engaged beyond the university, contributing as an ARC College of Experts Member and holding the esteemed position of Editor-in-Chief of the Desalination journal and Executive Editor of the Desalination and Water Treatment journal. His scholarly impact is underscored by his co-authorship of one book, 31 book chapters, and over 550 refereed journal articles, along with three patents. This body of work has garnered significant recognition, accumulating over 29,650 citations and resulting in an impressive H-index of 90, as of Oct. 2024.