Many chemical reactions take place inside the cells of the organism to keep it

alive. Some products of these reactions are poisonous and must be removed
from the body. For example the breakdown of glucose during respiration
produces carbon dioxide. This is carried away by the blood and removed in the
lungs.
Introduction to excretion in human body
Excretion is the name given the removal of waste products of metabolic reactions
within cells, excess water and salts taken in with the diet from the body.
The excretory wastes are
Carbon dioxide
Water
Nitrogen containing wastes-in the form of ammonia, urea, uric acid
 
The excretory organs in the human body are:
Lungs
Kidneys
Liver
Skin
Excretion in the Human Body-lungs
The lungs supply the body with oxygen but they also function as excretory
organs because they get rid of carbon dioxide produced during cellular
respiration. They also lose a lot of water vapor in this process but this loss is
unavoidable and is not a method of controlling water content in the body. 
Excretion in the Human Body-kidneys
The kidneys are two bean shaped organs whose major function is homeostasis
or maintaining the balance of elements of the body. They do this by
Removing nitrogenous waste
Regulating the water content of the body
Adjusting the concentrations of various substances in the blood
The nitrogenous waste is nitrogen-containing waste mostly in the form of
ammonia, urea and uric acid.
The kidney is made up of microscopic tubes called the renal tubules or the
nephrons.
The nephron is made up of the:
Renal corpuscle made up of the Bowman’s capsule and glomerulus
Proximal convoluted tubule
Henles loop
Distil convoluted tubule
Collecting tubules 
  
The blood pressure in a  glomerulus cause part of the blood plasma to leak
through the capillary walls. The process by which the fluid is filtered out of the
blood is called ultrafiltration. The filtrate from the glomerulus next collects in the
renal capsule and slowly trickles down the renal tubule. As it does so the
capillaries, which surround the tubule, absorb the useful substances like glucose,
some salts, water back into the blood. This process is called selective
reabsorption.
Salts not needed pass down the kidney tubule along with the nitrogenous waste
products –urea and uric acid down the renal tubule into the pelvis of the kidney.
From here the fluid is called urine passes down the ureter and to the urinary
bladder from where it emptied out of the body at regular intervals
Excretion in the Human Body-liver
The yellow /green pigment called bile is a breakdown product of hemoglobin.
Bilirubin is excreted with bile into the small intestine and expelled with the feces.
This pigment undergoes changes in the intestine and is responsible for the brown
color of feces.
Ammonia is a toxic waste. Ammonia is converted into a less toxic waste form
called urea in man. The synthesis of urea takes place in the liver .The reactions
of urea synthesis take place in a cyclic pathway and are known as the Ornithine
cycle.
Excretion in the Human Body-skin
Sweat consists of water with sodium chloride and traces of urea dissolve in it. When you
sweat you will expel these substances from your body. However sweating is due to
response to the rise in temperature. In this sense it is not an excretory organ like the
lungs and the kidneys .
EXCRETION

We have already discussed how organisms get rid of

gaseous wastes generated during photosynthesis or
respiration. Other metabolic activities generate nitrogenous
materials which need to be removed. The biological process
involved in the removal of these harmful metabolic wastes
from the body is called excretion. Different organisms use
varied strategies to do this. Many unicellular organisms
remove these wastes by simple diffusion from the body
surface into the surrounding water. As we have seen in other
processes, complex multi-cellular organisms use specialised
organs to perform the same function.
Excretion in Human Beings
The excretory system of human beings (Fig. 6.13) includes a
pair of kidneys, a pair of ureters, a urinary bladder and a
urethra. Kidneys are located in the abdomen, one on either
side of the backbone. Urine produced in the kidneys passes
through the ureters into the urinary bladder where it is stored
until it is released through the urethra.
How is urine produced? The purpose of making urine is to
filter out waste products from the blood. Just as CO2 is
removed from the blood in the lungs, nitrogenous waste
such as urea or uric acid are removed from blood in the
kidneys. It is then no surprise that the basic filtration unit in
the kidneys, like in the lungs, is a cluster of very thin-walled
blood capillaries. Each capillary cluster in the kidney is
associated with the cup-shaped end of a tube that collects
the filtered urine (Fig. 6.14). Each kidney has large numbers
of these filtration units called nephrons packed close
together.
 
Some substances in the initial filtrate, such as glucose,
amino acids, salts and a major amount of water, are
selectively re-absorbed as the urine flows along the tube.
The amount of water reabsorbed depends on how much
excess water there is in the body, and on how much of
dissolved waste there is to be excreted. The urine forming in
each kidney eventually enters a long tube, the ureter, which
connects the kidneys with the urinary bladder. Urine is
stored in the urinary bladder until the pressure of the
expanded bladder leads to the urge to pass it out through
the urethra. The bladder is muscular, so it is under nervous
control, as we have discussed elsewhere. As a result, we
can usually control the urge to urinate.

Artificial kidney (Hemodialysis)

Kidneys are vital organs for survival. Several factors like
infections, injury or restricted blood flow to kidneys reduce
the activity of kidneys. This leads to accumulation of
poisonous wastes in the body, which can even lead to death.
In case of kidney failure, an artificial kidney can be used. An
artificial kidney is a device to remove nitrogenous waste
products from the blood through dialysis. Artificial kidneys
contain a number of tubes with a semi-permeable lining,
suspended in a tank filled with dialysing fluid. This fluid has
the same osmotic pressure as blood, except that it is devoid
of nitrogenous wastes. The patient’s blood is passed through
these tubes. During this passage, the waste products from
the blood pass into dialysing fluid by diffusion. The purified
blood is pumped back into the patient. This is similar to the
function of the kidney, but it is different since there is no
reabsorption involved. Normally, in a healthy adult, the initial
filtrate in the kidneys is about 180 L daily. However, the
volume actually excreted is only a litre or two a day, because
the remaining filtrate is reabsorbed in the kidney tubules.
RELATED TOPICS

Kidney in the Human Body

Vascular Anatomy

The renal artery carries blood to the kidney where it branches into many smaller arteries
within the kidney. These arteries carry blood to the nephrons, the functional units of the
kidneys. Blood then travels through many small veins that merge to form the renal vein,
which returns the blood to the heart.

Blood Volume and Pressure

Blood volume and blood pressure are directly related. If blood sodium levels are high,
an increase in body fluid volume will increase, including blood volume. Higher blood
volume leads to an increase in blood pressure. The kidneys remove sodium from the
blood leading to a decrease in body fluid volume and blood pressure.

Waste Removal

The kidneys remove metabolic waste from the blood. Urea is produced during cellular
catabolism and is removed by the kidneys and excreted in the urine.
Regulation of pH

The kidneys help maintain the body's normal pH level by removing acid from the blood.
The kidneys also reabsorb bicarbonate, a buffer.

Hormone Excretion

The kidneys are responsible for the excretion of certain hormones into the blood.
Erythropoietin stimulates red blood cell production. Specialized cells in the kidneys
release renin in response to low blood pressure. Renin is a hormone that leads to an
increase in blood pressure.

Metabolic waste

Metabolic wastes or excretes are substances left over from respiratory processes,
which cannot be used by the organism (they are surplus or have lethal effect), and must
therefore be excreted. This includes nitrogen compounds, water, CO2, phosphates,
sulfates, indoles, medicals, food additives etc. Animals treat these compounds as
excretes. Plants have chemical "machinery" which transforms some of them (primarily
the nitrogen compounds) into useful substances, and it has been shown by Brian J.
Ford that abscised leaves also carry wastes away from the parent plant. In this way,
Ford argues that the shed leaf acts as an excretophore (= organ carrying away
excretory products).

All the metabolic wastes are excreted in a form of water solutes through the excretory
organs (nephridia, Malpighian tubules, kidneys), with the exception of CO2, which is
excreted together with the water vapor throughout the lungs. The elimination of these
compounds enables the chemical homeostasis of the organism.
Nitrogen wastes

The nitogen compounds through which the very toxic nitrogen is eliminated from the
organism are ammonia, urea and uric acid. All of these substances are product from the
protein metabolism.

Ammonia forms with the oxidation of amino groups (NH2), which are removed from the
proteins when they convert into carbohydrates. It is a very toxic substance and only one
nitrogen atom is removed with it. A lot of water is needed for the ammonia excretion.
Thus, the marine organisms excrete ammonia directly in the water (aminothelic
organisms), while the terrestrial (mainly amphibians and mammals) convert ammonia
into urea, a process which occurs in the liver and kidney.

Urea is a less toxic compound than ammonia; two nitrogen atoms are eliminated
through it and less water is needed for its excretion. Urea is a protein metabolism
product at vertebrates and part of the invertebrates. These organisms are called
ureothelic.

Uric acid is a protein metabolism product of terrestrial invertebrates, birds and terrestrial
reptiles. This is the reason of which these animals are called uricothelic organisms. In
humans and anthropoides, this acid is purine metabolism product. Uric acid is less toxic
than ammonia or urea; it contains four nitrogen atoms and a small amount of water is
needed for its excretion. Out of solute, it precipitates and forms crystals.

Water and carbon dioxide

These compounds form during the catabolism of carbohydrates and lipids in

condensation reactions, and in some other metabolic reactions of the amino acids.