Now, human pee to charge cellphones
Pee power! In a world first, UK scientists claim to have developed a novel method to charge mobile phones - using human urine.
Scientists working at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory have described the "breakthrough" finding of charging cell phones using urine as the power source to generate electricity.
"We are very excited as this is a world first, no-one has harnessed
power from urine to do this so it's an exciting discovery. Using the
ultimate waste product as a source of power to produce electricity is
about as eco as it gets," Dr Ioannis Ieropoulos from University of the
West of England (UWE), Bristol, an expert at harnessing power from
unusual sources using microbial fuel cells, said.
"One product
that we can be sure of an unending supply is our own urine. By
harnessing this power as urine passes through a cascade of microbial
fuel cells (MFCs), we have managed to charge a mobile phone. The beauty
of this fuel source is that we are not relying on the erratic nature of
the wind or the Sun, we are actually re-using waste to create energy,"
said Ieropoulos.
He said so far the microbial fuel power stack
that scientists have developed generates enough power to enable SMS
messaging, web browsing and to make a brief phone call.
"Making a call on a mobile phone takes up the most energy but we will
get to the place where we can charge a battery for longer periods. The
concept has been tested and it works - it's now for us to develop and
refine the process so that we can develop MFCs to fully charge a
battery," he said.
The Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) is an energy
converter, which turns organic matter directly into electricity, via the
metabolism of live microorganisms, researchers said.
Essentially, the electricity is a by-product of the microbes' natural
life cycle, so the more they eat things like urine, the more energy they
generate and for longer periods of time; so it's beneficial to keep
doing it, they said.
