Non-sewered sanitation systems have emerged as a valuable complement to sewered systems over the past two decades. Their importance is pronounced in urban areas of low- and middle-income countries, where they could prevent ~600,000 deaths annually by supplementing inadequate sanitation infrastructure. Additionally, in high-income countries, non-sewered systems are gaining traction due to sewer capacity limits and the growing emphasis on resource recovery.

Despite these advantages, the treatment and reclamation of blackwater (toilet wastewater) in non-sewered systems remains challenging. Approximately 20,000 liters/year of freshwater are used per person for toilet flushing, equivalent to an individual's drinking water needs for 15 years. Blackwater reclamation offers a promising solution to reduce freshwater extraction and prevent environmental pollution. However, research in this area has gained prominence recently, and there remains a gap in designing treatment trains. Current research focuses on individual technologies rather than proposing holistic frameworks that could aid urban planners and researchers in selecting technologies along the treatment train. Furthermore, the carbon footprint of complete non-sewered systems has not been quantified.

Addressing this, the thesis aims to: (1) develop a methodology to select technologies along the treatment train, (2) quantify the carbon footprint of a non-sewered system, and (3) assess the relevance of blackwater reuse in urban communities worldwide. The NEST building in Switzerland serves as a case study to demonstrate the application of the proposed approaches.

The methodology involves collecting data on blackwater quality and quantity, compiling a list of suitable technologies through literature review, and refining this list using pre-selection criteria. A pre-selection matrix groups technologies according to these criteria, assisting researchers in selecting context-specific technologies. Configured treatment trains are evaluated using 14 decision-making criteria to ensure social, technical, economic, and environmental sustainability. Applying this methodology, the most suitable treatment train for non-potable reuse (e.g., toilet flushing) includes a moving bed biofilm reactor, chemical precipitation, ultrafiltration, granular activated carbon, and UV disinfection. For indirect potable reuse (e.g., recharge of drinking water reservoirs), nanofiltration should be included.

Process designs are developed for the treatment trains using BioWin and used for the carbon footprint analysis. Indirect emissions from electricity consumption, particularly in the urine concentration unit, are identified as the largest contributors. Transitioning to renewable energy could significantly reduce the carbon footprint, emphasizing the need for comprehensive life cycle cost and benefit evaluations.

Finally, the thesis assesses the feasibility of applying the developed methods and results in urban communities across various income levels. For low-income countries, the selection of simple, robust technologies is emphasized due to frequent power cuts and high maintenance costs. Middle-income countries require a balance between efficiency and operational ease, while high-income countries benefit from resource recovery, necessitating legislative support for non-sewered systems.

In conclusion, this thesis establishes a framework for designing safe, reliable, and sustainable non-sewered sanitation systems for urban blackwater treatment and reuse, addressing a critical gap in current literature. It calls for pilot testing to validate these theoretical frameworks, advancing the operational knowledge of non-sewered sanitation to match the maturity level of traditional sewered systems.

One-third of the global population relies on non-sewered sanitation. In urban areas of low-and-middle income countries, treatment of faecal sludge is often insufficient. On-site sanitation technologies can provide sustainable and more affordable sanitation solutions for urban areas, but only if functioning faecal sludge management is in place. As a first step for treatment, faecal sludge is dewatered, resulting in a solid stream and liquid stream. There are many existing technologies to treat the solid fraction. However, treatment technologies for the liquid are often insufficient and land-intensive. This liquid after dewatering of faecal sludge is called ‘supernatant’. The reason why treatment of this supernatant is difficult, is because the composition is prone to variability.

In conventional sewer-based wastewater treatment, attached growth processes have proven to be robust to influent variability. Those technologies do not take a lot of space, which is an advantage in urban areas. Attached growth processes are aerobic treatment processes in which the biomass responsible for treatment is attached to some type of medium. This research is a proof of concept whether an attached growth system, in this case an MBBR process, could be an alternative for existing supernatant treatment technologies in non-sewered sanitation. A 5000 people urban community-scale scenario is considered, covering variability in influent composition and intermittency in faecal sludge supply.

To prove this concept, there is looked whether COD and N removals can be achieved to certain discharge standards.
First there is assessed whether the MBBR is able to run on one type of supernatant. After this, the variability in influent composition regarding COD/N ratio, salt ratio, and pH is tested by spiking the baseline supernatant. Intermittency in influent supply to the reactor is also tested. After these separate experiments, a realistic scenario is tested with supernatants from different types of sources, and intermittent supply over the weekend.

As a conclusion, the concept of using an MBBR for treatment of supernatant after dewatering of faecal sludge is proven for a community-scale scenario of 5000 people, and further research has to determine new outcomes like the possibility of pathogen reduction and phosphorous removal. After this, field tests need to determine the actual feasibility full-scale in non-sewered sanitation setting.

Faecal sludge management is recognized globally as an essential component of city-wide inclusive sanitation. However, a major gap in developing appropriate and adequate management and monitoring for faecal sludge is the ability to understand and predict the characteristics and volumes of accumulated faecal sludge, and correlations to source populations. Since standard methods for sampling and analysing faecal sludge do not currently exist, results are not comparable, the actual variability is not yet fully understood, and the transfer of knowledge and data between different regions and institutions can be challenging and often arbitrary. Due to this lack of standard analytical methods for faecal sludge, methods from other fields, such as wastewater management, and soil and food science are frequently applied. However, these methods are not necessarily the most suitable for faecal sludge analysis, and have not been specifically adapted for this purpose. Characteristics of faecal sludge can be different than these other matrices by orders of magnitude. There is also a lack of standard methods for sampling, which is complicated by the difficult nature of in situ sampling, the wide range of onsite sanitation technologies and potential sampling locations, and the diverse heterogeneity of faecal sludge within onsite containments and within cities. This illustrates the urgent need to establish common methods and procedures for faecal sludge characterisation, quantification, sampling, and modelling. The aim of this book is to provide a basis for standardised methods for the analysis of faecal sludge from onsite sanitation technologies, for improved communication between sanitation practitioners, and for greater confidence in the generated data. The book presents background information on types of faecal sludge, methods for sample collection, health and safety procedures for handling, case studies of experimental design, an approach for estimating faecal sludge at community to city-wide scales, modelling containment and treatment processes, recipes for simulants, and laboratory methods for faecal sludge analysis currently in use by faecal sludge laboratories. This book will be beneficial for researchers, laboratory technicians, academics, students and sanitation practitioners.@en