Dezentrale Ressourengewinnung aus Abwasser

Ein sparsamer Umgang mit Ressourcen wird auch in der Schweiz immer wichtiger. Wie man es vom Abfallrecycling schon lange kennt, lassen sich auch aus dem Abwasser Ressourcen effizient rückgewinnen. Die Eawag forscht interdisziplinär an nachhaltigen Lösungen, welche dem Menschen und der Umwelt dienen.

Ressourcenkreislauf am Beispiel eines Gebäudes: Die Abwasserströme werden an der Quelle getrennt, die gewonnenen Ressourcen wiederverwendet (Infografik: Daniel Röttele/ infografik.ch) Grafik anklicken zum Vergrössern
Ressourcenkreislauf am Beispiel eines Gebäudes: Die Abwasserströme werden an der Quelle getrennt, die gewonnenen Ressourcen wiederverwendet (Infografik: Daniel Röttele/ infografik.ch)
Grafik anklicken zum Vergrössern


Der Bau von Kanalisationen und Abwasserreinigungsanlagen (ARA) zur zentralen Behandlung von Abwasser hat im letzten Jahrhundert entscheidende Fortschritte für die menschliche Hygiene und Gesundheit, aber auch für den Schutz der Umwelt rund um Städte und Dörfer ermöglicht. Allerdings verbraucht dieses System grosse Mengen an Wasser und erschwert die Rückgewinnung der im Abwasser enthaltenen Wertstoffe. Der Klimawandel, die hohen Nährstoffeinträge in die Umwelt, die wachsende Bevölkerung sowie der massive Verlust der Biodiversität drängen dazu, das bestehende System zu überdenken. Wenn Hitzeperioden häufiger werden und Niederschläge sich verschieben, werden in den immer bevölkerungsreicheren Städten grosse Mengen an Wasser benötigt. Im Abwasser enthaltene Wertstoffe wie etwa Phosphor und Stickstoff werden zu Problemstoffen, wenn sie in die natürlichen Gewässer gelangen. Gleichzeitig muss Phosphor unter umweltbelastenden Bedingungen abgebaut und importiert werden, weil ihn die Landwirtschaft als Dünger benötigt.

Neben dem Schutz der menschlichen Gesundheit und der Gewässer ist daher die effizientere Nutzung der Ressourcen aus dem Abwasser ein Ziel bei der Abwasserbehandlung. Ein Ansatz dafür ist, die Kreisläufe von Wasser, Nährstoffen und Energie möglichst lokal zu schliessen. Neue Technologien, die auf dem Konzept der Trennung an der Quelle basieren, erlauben eine dezentrale Behandlung von Abwasser vor Ort auf kleinstem Raum.

Aktuelles

Aktuelles

Veranstaltungen

20.01.​2026
Praxiskurs
Ressourcen-orientierte Sanitärsysteme: Technologien, Chancen und Herausforderungen
9:00 Uhr
Eawag Dübendorf

Hintergrund

Vertiefte Informationen zum Thema.

 

 
Abwasserbehandlung – zentral, dezentral, hybrid

Abwasser kann je nach Ansatz in zentralen Kläranlagen für ganze Gemeinden aufbereitet werden oder dezentral in Gebäuden oder Quartieren.

 
Ressourcen aus Abwasser – Trennung an der Quelle

Ressourcen lassen sich effizienter aus dem Abwasser rückgewinnen, wenn die verschiedenen Abwasserströme in der Toilette getrennt werden.

Aktuell

Das Global Science Film Festival hat den Kurzfilm «Verhebets? Ein ressourcenorientierter Apéro» von Eawag-Nachwuchsforschenden in der Kategorie «Best Short Film 2023» nominiert.

Verhebets? Ein ressourcenorientierter Apéro

Die Anschlusspflicht ist ein Killerargument gegen die Implementierung dezentraler und ressourcenorientierter Sanitärsysteme. Ausserdem besteht kein Umsetzungswissen für solche Anlagen in der Schweiz. Nachwuchsforschende des Wings-Programms fragten sich: «Ist das wirklich so?» In ihrem neuen Videoprojekt räumen sie mit Mythen rund um ressourcenorientierte Abwassersysteme auf.
 

Wissenstransfer

Wie wir unser Wissen in die Praxis bringen.

 
Water Hub

Entwicklung dezentrales Wasser- und Abwassermanagement im NEST-Gebäude von Eawag und Empa um.

 
Vuna

Ehemaliges Eawag Spin-off, das sich auf die Rückgewinnung von Nährstoffen aus Urin spezialisiert hat.

Publikationen für die Praxis

2022
Dezentrale Ressourcen aus Abwasser gewinnen
Eawag Newsletter Spezial
2022
Forschen mit Fäkalien
Comicreportage, Eawag
2022
Schwarzwasser
Factsheet [pdf, 573.0 KB]
2021
Grauwasser
Factsheet [pdf, 268.8 KB]
2019
Urinseparierung
Factsheet [pdf, 416.7 KB]
2018
Resource Recovery from Waste
Book, International Water Management Institute
2013
Source Separation and Decentralization for Wastewater Management
Book, IWA Publishing

Expertinnen und Experten

Urinseparierung

Prof. Dr. Kai Udert
  • Abwassertrennung
  • Dezentrale Technologien
  • Nährstoffe
  • Urinseparierung
  • Ressourcenrückgewinnung

Grauwasseraufbereitung

Prof. Dr. Eberhard Morgenroth
  • Abwasser
  • Dezentrale Technologien
  • Nährstoffe
  • Siedlungswasserwirtschaft
  • Infrastrukturplanung
  • Urinseparierung
Dr. Frederik Hammes
  • Biofilme
  • Durchflusszytometrie
  • Legionellen
  • Mikrobiologie
  • Sensoren
Dr. Tim Julian
  • Mikroben
  • Siedlungshygiene

Schwarzwasseraufbereitung

Dr. Linda Strande
  • Siedlungshygiene
  • Klimaveränderung
  • Ressourcenrückgewinnung
  • Dezentrale Systeme
  • Mikrobielle Ökologie

Wings

Dr. Sabine Hoffmann
  • Nachhaltige Wasserwirtschaft
  • Partizipative Prozesse
  • Schnittstelle zwischen Wissenschaft und Politik
  • Transdisziplinäre Forschung

Forschungsprojekte

In Autarky entwickeln wir kleine Anlagen für die getrennte Behandlung von Urin, Abwasser und Fäkalien direkt in der Toilette.
Blue Diversion AUTARKY – Abwasserbehandlung ohne Netzanschluss
Indem wir Nährstoffe aus Urin zurückgewinnen, entwickeln wir ein Sanitärsystem, welches wertvollen Dünger produziert
VUNA - Nährstoffrückgewinnung in Südafrika
Auf der ganzen Welt stehen Menschen vor Herausforderungen bei der Wasserversorgung. Die Ursachen liegen in der steigenden Nachfrage, Dürren,…
Wiederverwendung von Grauwasser an der Eawag
Ist ein Raumfahrtforschungs- programm, das die Entwicklung eines bioregenerativen Lebenserhaltungssystems für langfristige…
Melissa «Micro Ecological Life Support System Alternative»
Wir untersuchen die Herausforderungen modularer Infrastrukturen für die Schweizer Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft am Beispiel der…
COMIX: Modulare Wasserinfrastrukturen
Ressourcenrückgewinnung, marktbasierte Ansätze und Geschäftsmodelle sind der Schlüssel zu nachhaltigem Management.
Rückgewinnung von Ressourcen
In dem inter- und transdisziplinären strategischen Forschungsprogramm werden nicht-netzwerk basierte Wasser- und Abwassersysteme entwickelt.
Wings

Wissenschaftliche Publikationen

In-building heat recovery mitigates adverse temperature effects on biological wastewater treatment: a network-scale analysis of thermal-hydraulics in sewers

Heat recovery from wastewater is a robust and straightforward strategy to reduce water-related energy consumption. Its implementation, though, requires a careful assessment of its impacts across the entire wastewater system as adverse effects on the water and resource recovery facility and competition among heat recovery strategies may arise. A model-based assessment of heat recovery from wastewater therefore implies extending the modeling spatial scope, with the aim of enabling thermal-hydraulic simulations from the household tap along its entire flow path down to the wastewater resource recovery facility. With this aim in mind, we propose a new modeling framework interfacing thermal-hydraulic simulations of (i) households, (ii) private lateral connections, and (iii) the main public sewer network. Applying this framework to analyze the fate of wastewater heat budgets in a Swiss catchment, we find that heat losses in lateral connections are large and cannot be overlooked in any thermal-hydraulic analysis, due to the high-temperature, low-flow wastewater characteristics maximizing heat losses to the environment. Further, we find that implementing shower drain heat recovery devices in 50% of the catchment's households lower the wastewater temperature at the recovery facility significantly less – only 0.3 K – than centralized in-sewer heat recovery, due to a significant thermal damping effect induced by lateral connections and secondary sewer lines. In-building technologies are thus less likely to adversely affect biological wastewater treatment processes. The proposed open-source modeling framework can be applied to any other catchment. We thereby hope to enable more efficient heat recovery strategies, maximizing energy harvesting while minimising impacts on biological wastewater treatment.
Hadengue, B.; Joshi, P.; Figueroa, A.; Larsen, T. A.; Blumensaat, F. (2021) In-building heat recovery mitigates adverse temperature effects on biological wastewater treatment: a network-scale analysis of thermal-hydraulics in sewers, Water Research, 204, 117552 (11 pp.), doi:10.1016/j.watres.2021.117552, Institutional Repository

The potential contribution of urine source separation to the SDG agenda - a review of the progress so far and future development options

Sanitation and wastewater management are highly relevant for reaching a number of interconnected sustainable development goals (SDGs), especially SDG 6, the provision of safe drinking water and adequate sanitation for all as well as protection of water resources against pollution, and SDG 14.1, reducing nutrient emissions to the marine environment. Recent evidence increasingly shows that conventional sewer-based wastewater management will not be able to reach these targets. Rather than further optimizing and diffusing this ageing infrastructure paradigm, radical innovations like urine source separation technologies could help to leapfrog towards faster achievement of the SDGs. The technology would simplify on-site sanitation and develop a closed-loop nutrient cycle, thereby allowing for exceptionally high nutrient removal from wastewater and direct reuse in agriculture from the first day of implementation. Radical innovations, however, need decades to materialize. Based on a review of relevant academic and grey literature, we show how the past three decades of development of urine source separation have brought breakthroughs in toilet design and treatment processes, enabling the technology's value chain to reach the brink of maturity. In a short outlook, we discuss how the technology may reach global diffusion over the next decade, with the main remaining challenges relating to the creation of mass-markets for urine-diverting toilets, automation and mass-production of treatment systems, and the legitimation of fertilizer produced from urine in the agricultural sector.
Larsen, T. A.; Gruendl, H.; Binz, C. (2021) The potential contribution of urine source separation to the SDG agenda - a review of the progress so far and future development options, Environmental Science: Water Research and Technology, 7(7), 1161-1176, doi:10.1039/D0EW01064B, Institutional Repository

State of the art of urine treatment technologies: a critical review.

Over the last 15 years, urine treatment technologies have developed from lab studies of a few pioneers to an interesting innovation, attracting attention from a growing number of process engineers. In this broad review, we present literature from more than a decade on biological, physical-chemical and electrochemical urine treatment processes. Like in the first review on urine treatment from 2006, we categorize the technologies according to the following objectives: stabilization, volume reduction, targeted N-recovery, targeted P-recovery, nutrient removal, sanitization, and handling of organic micropollutants. We add energy recovery as a new objective, because extensive work has been done on electrochemical energy harvesting, especially with bio-electrochemical systems. Our review reveals that biological processes are a good choice for urine stabilization. They have the advantage of little demand for chemicals and energy. Due to instabilities, however, they are not suited for bathroom applications and they cannot provide the desired volume reduction on their own. A number of physical-chemical treatment technologies are applicable at bathroom scale and can provide the necessary volume reduction, but only with a steady supply of chemicals and often with high demand for energy and maintenance. Electrochemical processes is a recent, but rapidly growing field, which could give rise to exciting technologies at bathroom scale, although energy production might only be interesting for niche applications. The review includes a qualitative assessment of all unit processes. A quantitative comparison of treatment performance was not the goal of the study and could anyway only be done for complete treatment trains. An important next step in urine technology research and development will be the combination of unit processes to set up and test robust treatment trains. We hope that the present review will help guide these efforts to accelerate the development towards a mature technology with pilot scale and eventually full-scale implementations.
Larsen, T. A.; Riechmann, M. E.; Udert, K. M. (2021) State of the art of urine treatment technologies: a critical review., Water Research X, 13, 100114 (20 pp.), doi:10.1016/j.wroa.2021.100114, Institutional Repository

Making waves: why water reuse frameworks need to co-evolve with emerging small-scale technologies

Novel technologies allow to reuse or recycle water for on-site applications such as toilet flushing, showering, or hand washing at the household- or building-scale. Many of these technologies have now reached technology readiness levels that require for verification and validation testing in the field. Results from such field tests of decentralized water reuse systems have been published over the past few years, and observed performance is often compared to quality targets from water reuse frameworks (WRFs). An inspection of ten recent journal publications reveals that targets from WRFs are often misinterpreted, and the emphasis of these publications is too often on demonstrating successful aspects of the technologies rather than critically evaluating the quality of the produced water. We hypothesize that some of these misinterpretations are due to ambiguous definition of scopes of WRFs (e.g., "unrestricted urban reuse") and unclear applicability for novel recycling systems that treat the water for applications that go beyond the reuse scopes defined in current WRFs. Additional challenges are linked to the verification of WRF quality targets in small-scale and decentralized systems under economic and organizational constraints. Current WRFs are not suitable for all possible reuse cases, and there is need for a critical discussion of quality targets and associated monitoring methods. As the scope of water reuse has expanded greatly over the past years, WRFs need to address new applications and advances in technology, including in monitoring capacities.
Reynaert, E.; Hess, A.; Morgenroth, E. (2021) Making waves: why water reuse frameworks need to co-evolve with emerging small-scale technologies, Water Research X, 11, 100094 (5 pp.), doi:10.1016/j.wroa.2021.100094, Institutional Repository

Emerging solutions to the water challenges of an urbanizing world

The top priorities for urban water sustainability include the provision of safe drinking water, wastewater handling for public health, and protection against flooding. However, rapidly aging infrastructure, population growth, and increasing urbanization call into question current urban water management strategies, especially in the fast-growing urban areas in Asia and Africa. We review innovative approaches in urban water management with the potential to provide locally adapted, resource-efficient alternative solutions. Promising examples include new concepts for stormwater drainage, increased water productivity, distributed or on-site treatment of wastewater, source separation of human waste, and institutional and organizational reforms. We conclude that there is an urgent need for major transdisciplinary efforts in research, policy, and practice to develop alternatives with implications for cities and aquatic ecosystems alike.
Larsen, T. A.; Hoffmann, S.; Lüthi, C.; Truffer, B.; Maurer, M. (2016) Emerging solutions to the water challenges of an urbanizing world, Science, 352(6288), 928-933, doi:10.1126/science.aad8641, Institutional Repository

A research agenda for the future of urban water management: exploring the potential of non-grid, small-grid, and hybrid solutions

Recent developments in high- and middle-income countries have exhibited a shift from conventional urban water systems to alternative solutions that are more diverse in source separation, decentralization, and modularization. These solutions include non-grid, small-grid, and hybrid systems to address such pressing global challenges as climate change, eutrophication, and rapid urbanization. They close loops, recover valuable resources, and adapt quickly to changing boundary conditions such as population size. Moving to such alternative solutions requires both technical and social innovations to co-evolve over time into integrated socio-technical urban water systems. Current implementations of alternative systems in high- and middle-income countries are promising, but they also underline the need for research questions to be addressed from technical, social, and transformative perspectives. Future research should apply a transdisciplinary research approach through socio-technical "lighthouse" projects that apply alternative urban water systems at scale. Such research should leverage experience from lighthouse projects in a range of socio-economic contexts, identify their potentials and limitations from an integrated perspective, and share their successes and failures across the urban water sector.
Hoffmann, S.; Feldmann, U.; Bach, P. M.; Binz, C.; Farrelly, M.; Frantzeskaki, N.; Hiessl, H.; Inauen, J.; Larsen, T. A.; Lienert, J.; Londong, J.; Lüthi, C.; Maurer, M.; Mitchell, C.; Morgenroth, E.; Nelson, K. L.; Scholten, L.; Truffer, B.; Udert, K. M. (2020) A research agenda for the future of urban water management: exploring the potential of non-grid, small-grid, and hybrid solutions, Environmental Science and Technology, 54(9), 5312-5322, doi:10.1021/acs.est.9b05222, Institutional Repository

Titelbild: Daniel Röttele/infografik.ch