Environment & Energy

jpak

(41,759 posts) Sat Jul 20, 2013, 04:36 PM Jul 2013

Pee Powered Batteries Coming To A Smartphone Near You

http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/1112900177/smartphones-rely-power-urine-batteries-071713/

In the future, if your smartphone has started to show 20 percent battery life, you may need to grab a bottle of water and find a toilet to charge it up.

Researchers from the University of Bristol and Bristol Robotics Laboratory said they have created a fuel cell that uses bacteria to break down urine to generate electricity. The team wrote in the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy that they have created the world’s first “ultimate waste product.”

The team said they were able to charge a Samsung mobile phone using urine as it passed through a cascade of microbial fuel cells (MFCs). The team believes this technology could eventually be installed in bathrooms to harness urine and produce sufficient electricity to power showers, lighting or razors.

“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,” Dr Ioannis Ieropoulos, from the Bristol Robotics Laboratory, said in the journal.

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Ain't that a pissah!