Who would have thought that urine can be an electricity supply solution?

Developing countries and other areas experiencing conflicts, natural disasters, famine and other hazards may soon benefit from pee power, as researchers from the University of the West of England (UWE) in Bristol, United Kingdom, have created a urinal that converts urine into electricity. The team, in partnership with Oxfam, aims to bring this technology to refugee camps without electricity supply.

The pee power technology is made possible by microbial fuel cells (MFC), which are bio-electrochemical systems that induce electrical current from bacteria and bacterial interaction. MFCs as power source have been shown to work when an earlier urinal model was used to charge a mobile phone in 2013.

"The microbial fuel cells work by employing live microbes, which feed on urine (fuel) for their own growth and maintenance. The MFC is in effect a system, which taps a portion of that biochemical energy used for microbial growth and converts that directly into electricity—what we are calling urine-tricity or pee power," said Ioannis Ieropoulos, UWE research team leader.

The UWE research team, however, wanted to find a more practical application of the technology; working with Oxfam, they want to bring their urinals to refugee camps without power supply to help lessen particularly hazardous situations at refugee camps at night.

Thus, the research team hopes that the urinals will be able to generate enough power to light up toilets and other camp areas using a waste product that comes in abundant supplies. This also makes the urinals practical for aid agencies.

Currently, these power-generating urinals are being tested on campus by encouraging the university staff and students to use it. The device that converts urine into electricity is placed underneath the urinal and can be viewed under a clear screen. The team has also released a video that shows the urinal prototype.

The urinal prototype costs around $900 to set up, and each MFC costs $1.50. However, this is a sustainable technology that can work as long as there is urine supply, which means that it can work forever. This makes pee power a sustainable, long-lasting and cheap technology, which may find further applications as it is being developed.

By: DocMemory
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