Overview
AZOW-S is the single-household configuration of the AZOW vacuum phase-separation platform, and it is aimed at one target: the septic tank. About 20 % of households worldwide lie beyond a centralized sewer — roughly 60 million people in the United States alone, some 28 % of households in Ireland, about 4 million in France. Their standard solution is a 160-year-old compromise that treats only 50–70 % of the incoming load, infiltrates the balance into soil, needs a drainage field that silts up, and must be pumped out every 3 to 5 years.
AZOW-S replaces biology with physics. The full wastewater stream of one home enters a compact sealed vacuum module; water evaporates at the temperature of the surroundings under deep vacuum, condenses, and returns as reuse-grade technical water at 99 %+ recovery. The organic load leaves as a dry, sterile, odorless solid — DOS — suitable as fuel for a fireplace, while a denser mineral fraction is separated and discarded with household waste.
For a reference household of 5 residents at 130 L per person per day, about 0.65 m³/day, specific energy is 1 kWh per tonne of stream: 19.5 kWh per month, 237 kWh per year — the consumption of one domestic refrigerator. Brute-force boiling of the same stream would take about 470 kWh/day, roughly 700 times more.
The pump-out truck, the drainage field, the living biology, the chemistry and the discharge to ground are all removed.
Applications
Septic-tank replacement for detached housing of 4 to 5 residents outside a sewer network — the primary case.
New-build off-grid housing, where avoiding a drainage field frees land and removes a permitting obstacle.
Sites where ground discharge is prohibited — shallow water tables, protected aquifers, coastal and karst zones.
Properties where pump-truck access is expensive or impossible, including remote and seasonal housing.
Operating Principle
Household wastewater enters a sealed chamber held under deep vacuum by a compact pump. Under reduced pressure the water fraction reaches its boiling point at the temperature of the surroundings, so it passes to vapour with no external heating. The vapour goes to a condensation loop and is collected as recovered water; heat is recuperated within the circuit at up to 98 %, which is what holds specific energy at 1 kWh per tonne.
Sterilization is not a separate step. Cell rupture under vacuum and desiccation kill bacteria, protozoa, fungi, viruses and pathogens as part of the phase transition itself.
The dry residue is separated by density into an organic fraction — the DOS chips — and a denser mineral fraction, so the mineral part does not sit as ash in the fuel.
There are no membranes, no reagents, no living biological charge, no chlorine, and no explosion hazard.
Key Parameters
Reference household: 5 residents, 130 L per person per day, service cycle 1 month.
| Parameter | Value |
|—|—|
| Feed | 0.65 m³/day — about 19.5 m³/cycle |
| Process temperature | ambient — equal to the feed and the surroundings, no heat supplied, no setpoint |
| Specific energy | 1 kWh per tonne of stream (AZOW platform canon) |
| Household consumption | 0.65 kWh/day — 19.5 kWh/cycle — 237 kWh/year |
| Electricity cost | about 6 € per cycle, 71 € per year at 0.30 €/kWh |
| Heat recuperation | up to 98 % |
| Water recovery | 99 %+, up to 99.98 % per ZWD |
| Product water COD | below 5 mg/L |
| Product water BOD | below 2 mg/L |
| Ammonia | 0 mg/L |
| E. coli / coliforms / enterococci | 0 |
| Total bacterial load | below 4 CFU/mL |
| Dry organic output | 9.24 kg/cycle — about 112 kg/year |
| DOS chips at 10–15 % moisture | 10.3–10.9 kg/cycle — 125–132 kg/year — 0.34–0.36 kg/day |
| Mineral fraction to waste | 4.26 kg/cycle — 52 kg/year |
| DOS calorific value | 18–22 MJ/kg — 0.56–0.69 MWh/year, equivalent to 115–141 kg of wood pellets |
| Module volume | about 75 L — 50 L liquid buffer plus about 25 L of equipment |
| Liquid discharge to ground | none |
| Pump-out requirement | none over the 20-year service life |
| Consumables | none — no membranes, reagents or biological charge |
| Bulk density of chips after vacuum | [критический замер] — determines daily bag volume |
Dry-mass basis: counting faeces and urine only, per person per day, faeces give about 30 g dry matter of which about 15 % is ash, so about 25.5 g organic; urine gives about 60 g dry matter of which about 40 % is salts, so about 36 g organic. Total about 61.5 g organic per person per day.
Architecture and Components
A liquid buffer tank of about 50 L, which averages out surge discharges from a shower or washing machine, plus the vacuum pump, condenser and controls at about 25 L — around 75 L in total, with no pelletizer. The scale is that of a small under-sink water heater: wall-mounted or in the corner of a utility room. There is no container and no external structure.
DOS chips fall into a receiving tray and are removed daily. No pelletizer and no additional drying stage are required, because the vacuum already brings the residue to 10–15 % moisture.
The vertical chamber in AZOW-Domus is 4 m; for a domestic stream the height has still to be recalculated — [инженерная задача].
Advantages
Against the septic tank, on treatment. Septic removes 50–70 % of the organic load and an aeration station 95–98 %; AZOW-S output meets drinking-class limits by the numbers, and is supplied to the loop as technical water for psychological reasons only.
Water returns to the house. Septic and aeration stations both return 0 %; AZOW-S returns 99 %+ for irrigation, technical use, storage or discharge.
No pump-out truck, ever. A visit costs about $425, in a range of $290–560, at one call every 3 to 5 years — $1,700–3,000 over a 20-year life, or $85–140 a year, saved in full.
No drainage field. The field consumes land, silts up over years, and its replacement — a five-figure event — is the single largest cost in the life of a septic system.
Zero discharge to ground. No nitrate or ammonia loading of the aquifer, no pathogen transport, no methane from anaerobic decomposition.
The residue is fuel. 112 kg/year of dry sterile organic matter goes straight into the fireplace in winter, worth 0.56–0.69 MWh.
No biology to poison. Household chlorine, disinfectants and pharmaceuticals suppress a septic tank's anaerobic culture; there is no culture here to suppress.
Integrations
Arbok Zero-Organic-Waste (AZOW) · AZOW-Domus · ARBOK-Purification · Arbok-ZWD Gasification
AZOW-S is the residential-appliance-scale member of the AZOW platform. The building-scale configuration is AZOW-Domus at a 200-resident reference; the industrial digestate application is documented separately.
Deployment & Operation
The module is installed indoors — a heated utility room or basement. The process itself runs at the temperature of the surroundings, but the unit must not be allowed to freeze, so an unheated outdoor installation is excluded in a cold climate.
Chips are removed daily, about 0.34–0.36 kg, into a bag and then to the fireplace. Nothing rots: the residue is sterile and dry, there is no anaerobic odour, and daily removal leaves no time for moisture or smell to develop. The mineral fraction goes out with household waste.
Servicing over the life of the unit does not include a pump-out.
TRL
Concept at the AZOW-S configuration level. The underlying vacuum phase-separation process is TRL 9; the building-scale configuration AZOW-Domus is validated at TRL 7–8. What is not yet built is the household-appliance-scale module itself.
Market Potential
The addressable base is every household beyond a centralized sewer — about 20 % worldwide. In the United States roughly one household in five, some 60 million people, with New England and much of the rural Southeast above 40–55 %. In Ireland about 28 % of households; in France about 4 million. These are the standard sanitation arrangements of low-density housing across the developed world, not edge cases.
The competing spend is already being made: aggregated over a 20–30 year life, routine septic maintenance runs to $3,000–6,000, and the near-certain one-time drainage-field replacement adds $10,000–15,000 — a whole-life figure of $13,000–21,000, on the order of $40–60 per month before any catastrophic event.
Typical Project Economics
Operating cost is 237 kWh/year of electricity — about 71 € a year at 0.30 €/kWh — and nothing else: no pump-out, no consumables, no additives, no field maintenance.
Against it stands the avoided septic bill of $40–60 per month in whole-life terms, plus the value of 0.56–0.69 MWh/year of fuel and of 0.65 m³/day of water returned to the house.
Module CAPEX and unit price for a household: [требует уточнения из базы] — the base holds figures only at building scale.
Risk Factors
The household module has not been built. The status is Concept; the validated hardware is AZOW-Domus at building scale.
Bulk density of the chips after vacuum is unmeasured and is a critical figure. As dense flakes at 0.3–0.5 kg/L the daily output is 0.7–1.2 L; as true potato-chip texture at 0.04–0.08 kg/L it is 4.5–9 L — a bag of crisps a day. The size of the receiving tray depends on which it turns out to be.
Chamber geometry is unresolved. The 4 m vertical chamber of AZOW-Domus has to be recalculated for a domestic flow.
Winter operation requires an indoor location. The process runs at the temperature of the surroundings, but the unit must not freeze, which imposes a heated technical room or basement.
Regulatory status. On-site wastewater systems are permitted against prescriptive standards written around settle-and-infiltrate designs; a zero-discharge unit has no obvious category in most jurisdictions.
Household economics are unpriced. Without module CAPEX the payback against the avoided septic bill cannot be stated.
Related Technologies
Arbok Zero-Organic-Waste (AZOW) · AZOW-Domus · ARBOK-Purification · Arbok-ZWD Gasification · ARBOK MedZWD