Stephanie Rusch Fehrmann, PhD Student at Luleå University of Technology
11 January 2024
Meet our researchers: "I want us to take better care of the resources"
Stephanie Rusch Fehrmann is a PhD student in Urban Water Engineering and wants to help the community by involving the community.
What is your research about?
"My research is about closing the nutritional loop. Right now, everything that we grow in the fields needs fertilisers. We eat the food from the fields and then the nutrients are flushed away through excreta and urine. Almost everywhere in Sweden, we don’t separate what we flush away from the toilet from what we flush from our shower for example. The excreta mix with other wastewater in the household, which makes it difficult to recover the nutrients. If the nutrients in our wastewater are not removed it will cause algae to start blooming, which is already a big problem in many places".
"We are creating an imbalance here. We are extracting minerals on one side and flushing them away on the other. I want us to take better care of the resources. We could source-separate our toilet wastewater from other wastewater and after a nutrient recovery process return them to the fields again. That way we don’t need to produce so much artificial fertilisers".
What makes your area so interesting?
"When we flush the toilet, we don't think about that we're using water as a transport medium of our faeces. I think that's criminal. What we are flushing away is not waste. It's resources of energy, nutrients and water and I want everyone to realise that".
"In Sweden, we live in a water paradise. Chile, where I come from, is the only country in the world where water is private. You must buy water rights. If you have a farm, you cannot use the water from a near river, you buy maybe 500 litres per hour to be able to grow something in your fields. This leads to speculation in the water market. In Sweden we treat stormwater separately from wastewater, that’s something Chile doesn’t do".
What is your dream as a researcher?
"I would like to focus on communication and cooperation, both within the University and especially with the public. I want to help the society by involving the society".
"I have worked with a project in Helsingborg, and they have an innovative and unique neighbourhood with a three-pipe system. One for the toilets, another for the rest of domestic wastewater and the last for food waste. The pipe for the toilet flush makes the nutrients in excreta a lot easier to recover. They are also using vacuum toilets that use one litre of water when flushing instead of around 4–5 litres per flush for conventional low-flush toilets. I would like more urban areas to implement this solution, especially when new areas are built".
About Stephanie Rusch Fehrmann
Name: Stephanie Rusch Fehrmann
My research: I am involved in two Urban water engineering projects (see below), both in the aim of my PhD. They are funded through Formas and the Creaternity graduate school.
Other: I am the communication office at the Young Water Professionals in Sweden.
Originally from: Chile (but I also lived seven years in Germany where I did my Master).
Live in: Luleå
Why Luleå University of Technology: I didn't choose this University, I was looking for a PhD project that I would fall in love with, and I found it in Luleå. I didn’t think I could get a better topic than this. I never realised how far up in Sweden Luleå is until I got the interview, I had to look it up on Google Maps.
My favourite place: Luleå in general is a good place because of the weather. It's like living in different places in different seasons. I really like the nature. I live in Björkskatan and when I ride my bike to work every day it makes me very happy. I like the way the bicycle roads are designed.
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