Background: There is an unmet demand for community-scale fecal sludge treatment units (FSTUs) that serve communities of between 1,000 and 50,000 people and are able to operate in non-sewered and off-grid environments. An emerging industry standard for FSTUs includes as a key criteria energy independence in steady-state. Theoretically, there is sufficient thermal energy available in fecal sludge to provide the electrical power needed to run the FSTU. However, such a system had never been implemented. Methods: Biomass Controls has previously demonstrated the thermal treatment of fecal sludge using the Biogenic Refinery, a thermal FSTU deployed in three sites in India. In this article we describe testing where a Biogenic Refinery was paired with a thermal fluid heat exchanger and organic Rankine cycle generator to generate electrical power. Results: This Biogenic Refinery combined heat and power system generated sufficient electrical power to offset electrical parasitic loads in steady-state operation and produce a surplus of 1.2 kWe. Conclusions: The results of the study demonstrate that there is an excess of energy available and reliable mechanisms to generate electrical energy using an FSTU. Additional steps are necessary to transition to a true off-grid FSTU.

Safely managed sanitation services, monitored by the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, require data on treatment of excreta from sanitation systems. This data is not readily available for the majority of United Nations member states and has led to estimates being established mostly for those countries where conventional sewer-based sanitation systems are prevalent. Presented in this article is a decentralized portable treatment unit for the safe treatment of excreta and sludges from non-sewered sanitation systems. Data from daily operations is generated from a variety of sensors, each collecting approximately ten data points per minute. Innovative cloudbased methods and data science tools are implemented to collect, store and analyze data. A software platform was developed that offers real-time reporting and alerts to operators and supervisors, allows for remote operation and control, and provides a multi tier architecture that enables user interaction through a mobile or web interface. Key Performance Indicators and results from long-term analytics are presented to quantify the effectiveness of the treatment process and provide relevant information to improve daily operations.Engineering

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract