Final phase of the project “Strategies for Urea recovery from wastewater: technical, economic, and environmental feasibility.”

The project “Strategies for Urea Recovery from Wastewater: Technical, Economic, and Environmental Feasibility,” funded by the ACCIÓ call for Initiatives to Strengthen Competitiveness (IRC), is reaching the final stages of its execution with promising results that could be applied to the textile sector and other industries that generate effluents with high urea concentrations.

The Polytechnic University of Catalonia – BarcelonaTech (UPC), CIM Aigua, and Hydrokemos (HYK), in coordination with the Catalan Water Partnership (CWP), have worked together throughout 2022 to study the technical feasibility and applicability of combining different disruptive, efficient, and sustainable technologies. These technologies will improve the treatment of complex wastewater with high nitrogen and dye content, both technically, environmentally, and economically.

On one hand, the project has defined the state of the art of conventional urea removal and separation technologies and, on the other, innovative technologies suitable for the treatment and/or valorization of this compound in the textile industry and other industrial sectors. Specifically, the project has investigated, both individually and in various coupling configurations, the nitrification-denitrification process, electrochemical technology that removes urea and residual dyes from water, as well as membrane filtration technologies that concentrate urea and separate it from the dye, preparing it for eventual reuse.

Among the expected results, the project has established the quality parameters to be met for the reuse of urea in new textile printing processes and other industrial processes. A pilot plant has been designed to serve as a basis for conducting laboratory and semi-industrial pilot tests at potential client facilities. Additionally, the final details of a comparative Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) report are being finalized. This report compares various coupling configurations of the selected innovative technologies with the conventional nitrification-denitrification treatment technology applied to urea treatment and valorization.