Incorporation of mineralized human waste and fish waste as a source of higher plant mineral nutrition in the BTLSS mass exchange.

The present study deals with the development of the principles and conditions of fish waste mineralization using the method of wet combustion with hydrogen peroxide in alternating electromagnetic field and describes testing mineralized human waste and fish waste as sources of nutrients for plants in the biotechnical human life support system (BTLSS). The study shows that mineralization of fish waste in the wet combustion reactor should be performed in the presence of readily oxidized organic matter, represented by human waste, as an activator of oxidation. Re-mineralization of the sediment in the mixture of hydrogen peroxide and nitric acid in the wet combustion reactor converts mineral elements bound in the sediment into the form available to plants. Using mineralized fish waste as an additional source of mineral elements in the nutrient solutions for growing plants based on mineralized human waste is a way to reduce the amounts of mineral elements added to the solution to replenish it, enabling fuller closure of material loops in the BTLSS.
(Copyright © 2019 The Committee on Space Research (COSPAR). Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)