Design of a Household Human Waste Bioreactor

Paul Andrew Cook

September 24, 2010
Submitted as coursework for Physics 240, Report II, Stanford University, Fall 2010

Introduction
This report examines using human waste as feedstock in a
small-scale bioreactor to produce methane gas for cooking
and heating. While the use of biogas produced from
livestock manure is commonplace, I am interested in the
feasibility of building a household reactor that instead
utilizes human waste as its primary input.

Background
When organic material (including human feces, animal
waste, and plants) is digested by microorganisms in the
absence of oxygen (anaerobic digestion) a gas is released
consisting of 60% methane and 40% carbon dioxide. This
gas is typically called biogas and because it can be ignited,
it may be used as a cooking and heating agent. Fig. 1: Simplified Bioreactor Process
Diagram A household with a HWB would
Usage deposit organic waste into the reactor and then
use the byproducts for heating, cooking, and
fertilization.[10]
A human waste bioreactor (HWB) can be used in
developing nations by families who do not have access to
electricity nor livestock manure. In addition, the household-sized HWB can be built without industrial
construction equipment and access to industrial materials. It could be employed in war torn areas where the
electrical grid has been destroyed. The HWB would be especially useful in refugee camps where there is no
sanitary sewer, people are already exposed to waste-borne illnesses, and there is a high-density living
environment without access to electricity.

Human feces can carry parasites and diseases such as cholera and giardia. In this report, I do not consider the
pathology of creating a HWB. Anyone building a household-sized HWB should analyze its potential to
spread disease.

Construction and Operation

A household HWB could be a simple vessel dug into the
ground with latrine and manure inputs and a solid-waste
outlet. (A secondary output of the HBW is a nutrient-rich

Fig. 2: Diagram of a Potential Biogas Plant
Direct contact with human waste could be
avoided by having the latrine directly input
into the digester. The inlet and mixer are for
supplementing the human waste with livestock How many people would have to contribute to a bioreactor
manure or food scraps. Source: Wikimedia
Commons.
consumption for one day was
fertilizer called the digestate. (See Figs. 1 and 2.) The
walls could be concrete or clay brick. The HWB needs to
be sealed to create anaerobic conditions, but must have a
cover with a release valve to trap the biogas and allow for
its release. Human waste would enter the bioreactor near
the bottom and continually feed the anaerobic digestion
process. The methane containing biogas would rise to the
top of the container; the user would extract the gas as
needed for cooking and heating. The digested sludge or
digestate would be removed and employed as fertilizer.
Design
to meet the energy demands of a modern household? In
2007, 111,609,629 US households consumed 101,527,000
Bbtu of electricity. Converting to joules, the per household

101,527,000 Bbtu/year 1.055 kJ/Btu

× = 2.63 × 106 kJ/day
111,609,629 households 356 days/y

But, only 45.2% of this energy went towards cooking and heating. Therefore, the total energy the bioreactor
would have to produce would be

2.6 × 1006 kJ/day × 0.452 = 1.19 × 106 kJ/day

One human produces 0.25 lbs of volatile waste per day that can be fully utilized in the reactor. [6-8] The mass
branching ratio between methane and carbon dioxide is 0.35. With a conservative estimate, 50% of the waste
will burn as methane, which has a specific heat (amount of energy released when the material is ignited) of
5.55 × 104 kJ/kg. [1] The usable energy one human produces in one day is

.25 lbs/day
× 0.50 × 0.35 × 5.55 × 104 kJ/kg = 1102.2 kJ/day
2.205 lbs/kg

Therefore, the number of people that should contribute to the bioreactor is simply,

1.19 × 106 kJ/day

= 1080
1102.2 kJ/day

If we were just putting human waste into the digester, how large would it need to be to accommodate 1080
people? On average, one human produces 2.2 lbs (0.998kg) of urine and 0.5 lbs (0.227 kg) of fecal matter or
a total of 2.7lbs (1.224 kg) waste in one day. [6-8] Assuming that the average density of human waste slurry
is 1.0 g/cm3, the volume of the primary basin would need to be at least
 1000 g/kg 1m3
1080 people × 1.224 kg/person × = 1.32 m3
1 g/cm3 × 106 cm3/m3 106cm3

This is the minimum volume necessary, as an anaerobic reaction proceeds optimally when the carbon to
nitrogen ratio (C/N) is near 30. [6,7,8] The C/N for human feces is between 6 - 10 and urine has 18%
nitrogen, making the C/N ratio decrease as more urine is added. [7] By combining the human feces with
sawdust, C/N of 200 - 500, we can increase the overall ratio inside the digester.

With the above C/N ratios, human feces have 6% nitrogen (sawdust contains only .1%). The total nitrogen
content of human feces is

1080 people × 0.227 kg/person × 0.06 = 14.6 kg

for the number of people contributing to the reactor. The total carbon content is

14.6 kg × 8 = 116.6 kg

or eight (the median between the 6-10 C/N ratio) times the amount of nitrogen. For human urine the total
nitrogen content is

1080 people × 0.998 kg/person × 0.18 = 193.9 kg

with a carbon content of

193.9 kg × 0.08 = 15.5 kg

because of its low C/N ratio. Considering both the feces and urine, the addition of 2000 kg of Sawdust
(nitrogen content of 1kg, carbon content of 350 kg) would raise the C/N ratio to

113.6 + 15 + 700
= 4.0
14.2 + 187.4 + 2

inside the digester. This ratio is well below the needed ratio, but removing the urine the C/N ratio is

113.6 + 350
= 29.9
14.2 + 1

with only 1000 kg of sawdust. This brings the C/N ratio near optimum for an anaerobic reaction.

Summary
The energy usage of the household would have to decrease in order to limit the input needed to meet the daily
demand. The high nitrogen content of human waste necessitates the addition of other materials to the
bioreactor to enable anaerobic digestion. Because of its high nitrogen content, urine should not be added to
the digester. Considering only the addition of human feces, 1000 kg/day of sawdust must be added to the
reactor for the creation of biogas. Therefore, human feces is not an ideal primary material for a bioreactor, but
one is capable of using it if there is access to a large amount of a secondary component with a high C/N ratio.

© Paul A. Cook. The author grants permission to copy, distribute and display this work in unaltered form,
with attribution to the author, for noncommercial purposes only. All other rights, including commercial rights,
are reserved to the author.

References
[1] C. Sawyer, P. McCarty and G. Parkin, Chemistry for Environmental Engineering and Science, 5th Ed.
(McGraw-Hill, 2002).

[2] C. Sawyer, P. McCarty and G. Parkin, "Chemistry for Environmental Engineering and Science,"Fifth
Edition, McGraw Hill, p. 573-574 (2002).

[3] U.S. Census Bureau, "Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2010 (129th Edition)," (U.S. Government
Printing Office, 2009), p. 593.

[4] "Energy Statistics of OECD countries, 2010 Edition," (OECD Press, 2010).

[5] "Energy Efficiency Trends in Residential and Commercial Buildings," U.S. Department of Energy,
October 2008.

[6] J. Fry, " Methane Digesters For Fuel Gas and Fertilizer," New Alchemy Institute, 1973.

[7] C. Polprasert, Organic Waste Recycling (IWA Publishing, 2007).

[8] C. R. Prasad et al, "Bio-Gas Plants: Prospects, Problems and Tasks," Economic and Political Weekly 9,
1347 (1974).

[9] C. S. Ferreira, "Refractive Index Matching Applied to Fecal Smear Clearing," Rev, Inst. Med. Trop. S.
Paulo 47, 347 (2005).

[10] L. Hopwood, "Anaerobic Digestion," UK National Non-Food Crops Centre, November, 2009.