Electrochemical Process

Electrochemical Process: A new electrochemical process converts urea into percarbamide, enabling the treatment of urine in urban wastewater and transforming it into a useful resource.

• About Electrochemical Process: Urine contains phosphorus, potassium, and nitrogen (Big Three nutrients), making it a natural plant fertiliser.
  
  • Separates urea from urine in its solid form via a greener, less energy-consuming process, converting urea into a crystalline peroxide derivative called percarbamide.
  • Nitrogen Cycle: Humans excrete urea through urine. Extracting urea efficiently can help complete the nitrogen cycle.
  • Pee-cycling Potential: Annual urine output contains ~4 kg nitrogen and 0.3 kg phosphorus per person, enough to grow wheat for a loaf of bread daily for a year.
  • Formation of Percarbamide: Urea forms hydrogen bonds with hydrogen peroxide, creating percarbamide – a white crystalline solid that can be precipitated out with high purity.
  • In-situ Technique: Uses a graphitic carbon-based catalyst to convert urea into percarbamide with almost 100% purity from human and animal urine.
  • Dual Pathways:

  o Pathway I: Urea reacts directly with hydrogen peroxide in the presence of a catalyst.

  o Pathway II: Urea binds to a hydroperoxyl (-OOH) intermediate with H+ ions, forming percarbamide with catalyst support.