The main objective of ETECHU is to develop a process based on electrochemical technologies to reduce the environmental and sanitary impact of hospital effluents by direct treatment of hospital urine, due to their chemical and biological risk. ETECHU does not intend to evaluate the best electrochemical technology for the complete degradation of pharmaceuticals (which implies a higher energy consumption and therefore a higher cost), but to implement a technology for the conversion of potentially hazardous pharmaceuticals into other less hazardous intermediate compounds. Thus, treated hospital urines can be discharged to the sewage network without generating problems in urban wastewater treatment plants and without contributing to the proliferation of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Furthermore, the implemented technology will be able to reach adequate levels of disinfection and avoid the generation of undesirable by-products.

To attain this goal, and taking into account everything learned in a previous project (SBPLY/17/180501/000396), it is planned to work in parallel on two levels: 1) Knowledge generation: field study to define the problem of hospital urines, taking as a case of study the University Hospital Center of Albacete (Complejo Hospitalario Universitario de Albacete, CHUA), 2) Scientific-technical development: development of electrochemical technology easily scalable and automatable to reduce the risk of hospital urines. Based on this, the partial objectives of this project are:

1. To analyse in a prospective way the urine generated in a hospital center, taking into account its biological and chemical risk, to clarify the real impact of the urine to hospital wastewater. A statistical and prevalence study will be carried out to identify the main pharmaceuticals (analgesics and anti-inflammatories, anaesthetics, antibiotics, antihypertensives, antiseptics, antivirals, hormones, etc.) and pathogens (fungi and bacteria) present in the urine of hospitalized patients. Likewise, a prospective study of other possible priority sources of contamination within the hospital center and a study of their impact on the final hospital effluent will be carried out.
2. To develop protocols to quantify and monitor the risk of hospital urine, taking care not only of its physicochemical and microbiological composition, but also its resistance and bacterial sensitivity, its toxicity and re-growth of pathogens.
3. To evaluate the management and treatment of hospital urines with biological risk, in order to design and optimize geometry and elements of a new electrochemical reactor concept for the disinfection and/or sterilization of hospital urines.
4. To evaluate the management and treatment of hospital urines with chemical risk, in order to design and optimize geometry and elements of a new electrochemical reactor concept for the conversion of pharmaceuticals present in urine into compounds of lower toxicity and hazard.
5. To validate the developed electrochemical technology for the treatment of real hospital urines and to carry out the preliminary design of an electrochemical system for the treatment of hospital urines.