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LooPi™

LooPi™ is a sustainable and circular public toilet system which uses plants to treat wastewater in an integrated constructed wetland ecosystem. This treated wastewater is reused for flushing, and nutrients from the wastewater are further transformed into fertiliser.

Developed in collaboration with EOOS Design GmbH and the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU).

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Treatment capacity of 50 L urine / 24 hr (≈ 200 flushes/ day)

Reduces water consumption by up to 90% compared to conventional flush toilets

  • Mobile
  • Gender neutral urinal
  • Flushing with purified wastewater
  • Captures nutrients from urine in biochar and turns them into agricultural fertiliser
  • Captures CO2 from atmosphere
  • Functional urban greening

How it works

LooPi™ contributes to the circular economy by recirculating water and nutrients. When a visitor has used the LooPi toilet, urine mixed with water is directed through the soil. Plants and microbial conversion processes at the plant roots break down contaminants and partly convert them into plant available nutrients. This way, the plants are fed by the wastewater and the water is simultaneously purified. Due to integrated ventilation, LooPi is completely odourless. The remaining nutrients are bound using biochar. This nutrient-enriched biochar can be used as organic fertiliser for agriculture. LooPi is designed to be dismantled and reused/recycled.

LooPi is customisable:

  1. LooPi mobile off-grid urinal:
    Mobile unit tested in central urban and event locations.
    Tested unit size: 4.20 m  x  3.05 m  x  2.40 m
    Tested unit weight: 13.5 t distributed on 8 support points
    Energy consumption for ≈200 flushes/ day: 5 kWh / d
    > 200 plants from over 30 species
    Dimensions are customisable to your setting.
  2. LooPi technology applied to existing toilet plumbing
    Any toilet can be turned into a LooPi toilet – not only urinals. Besides the mobile LooPi, the treatment technology can be applied to existing toilets.

The treatment technology behind LooPi, the patented vertECO© vertical ecosystem for decentralised greywater treatment, was developed by alchemia-nova in the EU research project demEAUmed. The first LooPi pilot was developed and tested with funding from the Austrian FFG, in collaboration with EOOS Design GmbH and the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU).

Addressing the following SDGs:

Awards:

 

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