Omni processor

Omni processor is a term coined in 2012 by staff of the Water, Sanitation, Hygiene Program of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Rather than a trademark, or a reference to a specific technology, the term omni processor is a general term for a range of self-sustaining, independently developed systems designed with the same end in mind, to transform and extract value from human waste — using various technological approaches, including combustion, supercritical water oxidation and pyrolysis.

In the term, omni refers to the ability of an omni processor to treat a wide variety of waste streams or fuel sources.

Background

Since 2012, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has been funding research into omni processors. An omni processor is any of various types of technologies that treat fecal sludge, also known as septage to remove pathogens and simultaneously extract byproducts with commercial value, for example energy or soil nutrients,

Challenges

The omni processor is targeted as a solution for developing countries, although challenges around technical and financial aspects remain.

Examples

Biomass Controls PBC

Biomass Controls PBC is a U.S. Delaware public benefit corporation that delivered the first biogenic refinery (OP) prototype to New Delhi, India, in 2014 in partnership with the Climate Foundation. This system was designed to process non-sewered sanitation for populations between 100 and 10,000 people. The prototype was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In 2016 a biogenic refinery was delivered to Kivalina, Alaska, for the processing of urine-diverting dry toilets (UDDTs) as part of the Alaska Water & Sewer Challenge.

Sedron Technologies

The U.S.-based company Sedron Technologies (formerly Janicki Bioenergy) presented in 2014 a prototype using combustion. Their process is a sewage sludge treatment system that produces drinking water and electrical energy as end products from sewage sludge.

The treatment process first involves boiling (or thermally drying) the sewage sludge, during which water vapor is boiled off and recovered. A dry sludge is left behind which is then combusted as fuel to heat a boiler. This boiler produces steam and the heat necessary for the boiling process. The steam is then used to generate electrical energy. Some of this electrical energy is used for the final water reverse osmosis purification stages to produce safe drinking water, and to power ancillary pumps, fans and motors. The process immediately uses the solid fuel it produces, and therefore the process does not make a solid fuel product as an end product.

A pilot project of Sedron Technologies' omni processor was installed in Dakar, Senegal, in 2015 and can now treat the fecal sludge of 50,000-100,000 people.

Climate Foundation

The U.S.-based NGO Climate Foundation, in collaboration with Stanford University, has built several pilot-scale reactors to treat human waste and turn it into biochar, which can be used as an agricultural soil amendment.

Duke University and 374Water

Scientists at Duke University in the U.S. have developed and are testing a pilot fecal sludge treatment unit that fits in a 20-foot shipping container and treats the fecal matter of roughly 1000 people using a new supercritical water oxidation (SCWO) process.

The waste (sludge) is reacted with air at temperatures and pressures above the critical point of water (374 °C, 221 Bar) to convert all of the organics into clean water and CO2 in seconds. Byproducts include distilled water, clean water which contains suspended inorganic minerals that can be utilized as fertilizers. The unit generates more than 900 liters of water for each ton of processed waste and the water can be processed further to drinking water.

The continuous process utilizes the energy embedded in the waste, thus enabling operating off-the-grid. 374Water is a Duke University spin-off company aiming to commercialize the SCWO technology.

Unilever

Unilever PLC in the United Kingdom is developing a pyrolysis-based fecal sludge treatment unit designed to serve over 2000 people.

Related research efforts

The omni processor initiative for processing fecal sludge is being complemented by an effort to develop new technologies for improved pit latrine emptying (called by the Gates Foundation the "omni ingestor"

Society and culture

Media attention

In a publicity stunt in late 2014, Bill Gates drank the water produced from Sedron Technologies' omni processor system, causing widespread media attention.