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Every day, we produce a lot of sewage (wastewater full of feces and urine). In fact, it adds up to
6.4 trillion liters of urine alone produced worldwide each year! The sewage is collected and then
treated or disposed of. But what if, along the way, there were a way to make that sewage do
something useful? It turns out that human urine is rich in nutrients, and some bacteria actually
thrive on eating those nutrients. There are also devices called microbial fuel cells that can
generateelectrical power by using certain bacteria. Could human urine be used to generate
electricity in a microbial fuel cell? Find out for yourself in this science project
Humans, like all living things, produce a lot of waste, but scientists are beginning to show us
that it doesn't need to end there. In terms of trash waste, Sweden burns more than two million
tons of the stuff annually—almost 50% of the garbage produced by the country—in order to
generate electricity. But that's not the only kind of waste that's proving useful. In the
U.K., human poop-powered buses took to the streets last November in a bid to reduce
emissions and fossil fuel usage. And now, on a similar theme, scientists working at
theUniversity of the West of England (UWE) have developed a “Pee-Power” toilet that,
Although the prototype urinal currently resides outside of the Student Union Bar, where it is sure
to receive a lot of visitors, the researchers behind the invention hope that it can do more than
amuse and bewilder drunken students. The energy generated by the system is used to light up
the cubicle, which would make it an ideal addition to refugee or displaced person camps that
often don’t have electricity. But it isn’t just stumbling around at night that is a problem; these
places are often dangerous for women after hours as many are abused or molested in dark
areas such as cubicles. The researchers are therefore hopeful that these toilets will help make it
So how do they work? The cubicles are fitted with stacks of microbial fuel cells (MFCs) that are
based on microbial metabolism. The live bacteria inside the fuel cells use urine as fuel for their
growth and maintenance, but as a bonus for us they produce electricity as a byproduct.
“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,” project leader Ioannis Ieropoulos said in a news release. “This technology is about
as green as it gets, as we do not need to utilize fossil fuels and we are effectively using a waste
Importantly, MFCs are also extremely cheap: each one costs around £1 ($1.51) to make.
According to Ieropoulos, setting up a unit like the prototype outside the Union will cost around
£600 ($900), which is a relatively small price tag given that it is a lasting product.
The researchers are trying to encourage as many students into the urinal as possible for now,
which has been designed to look like the toilets used in refugee camps run by the charity
Oxfam. If the ongoing trial aproves that the cubicles work well, then hopefully they can be
http://www.iflscience.com/technology/microbes-turn-pee-electricity
By Jonathan Kalan
12 March 2014
Today, over seven billion people populate our planet, which means on average
around 10.5 billion litres (2.8 billion gallons) of human urine is produced and
wasted each day. It’s the equivalent of 4,200 Olympic-sized swimming pools, if
anyone was counting. In fact, some scientists are – and if they have their way,
our human waste will be wasted no more.
A microbial fuel cell is essentially an energy converter, which uses bacteria found
in nature to breakdown organic matter, and in turn produce electrons that are
converted into energy. It’s a self-renewing system, because the more waste the
microbes eat, the more energy the system can generate and for longer.
MFCs hold such promise because they are currently one of the most efficient
means of converting waste to energy. According to Ani Vallabhaneni, co-founder
of Sanergy, a start-up that converts human waste to energy and fertiliser in
Kenya’s slums, common biogas digesters (which convert waste into mostly
methane gas) are around 35% efficient in terms of capturing energy inside the
waste. It’s claimed MFCs have upwards of 85% efficiency.
Research into MFCs is nothing new – they first appeared over a century ago,
and methods have advanced in fits and starts ever since. In the 1960s, Nasa
began looking at using microbial fuel cells in space to generate power from rice
husks. In the 1980s scientists started investigating whether these cells could help
power developing countries. But it’s only after 2000 that this research area has
really exploded – born of a growing need and increasing opportunity for
renewable-energy sources.
Electric jolt
Microbial fuel cells may be promising, but they aren’t only one way of unlocking
the energy inside our urine.
“If you had a building of 300 people, you are probably going to need a box of
about 1 kilowatt of power to clean the water,” explains Botte. “You cannot get
more energy than the energy you put in. Hydrogen is only going to have about
40% efficiency – you’re recovering 40% of the energy you use to clean urine.”
As a result, this process is more about capturing the previously untapped energy
in pee during the purification process, than creating an entirely new renewable
source of power. Still, to get fuel-grade hydrogen while decontaminating
(removing the ammonium) wastewater can save tremendous energy costs – so
the potential benefits are clear.
Water works
So could pee-power really be the energy of the future? And can it be a solution
not just for developed nations, but for the billion people around the world who
lack access to electricity?
The biggest hurdles are currently cost, scale, and output. At the commercial
level, these systems could be applied to wastewater treatment plants, saving
tremendous energy costs by effectively recovering energy during the process of
treating urine, and feeding it back into the system.
For smaller-scale home or office use, they still don’t quite produce enough
electricity from urine to justify the space and expense. For places without big
industrial systems – but in need of both energy and clean water, it’s another
story.
“There’s a lot of basic research still going on, a lot to be developed. I believe it
can make it, but the cost has to be really low,” says Korneel Rabaey, president of
the International Society for Microbial Electrochemistry and Technology.
Presently, this kind of system would cost between $5,000-$10,000. While that’s a
hefty price tag, it would last for an incredibly long time, says Rabaey, “because
these organisms inside are self-renewing. As long as you feed it waste water, the
bacteria is happy.”
While today’s solar panels could certainly deliver more power per unit at that
cost, they wouldn’t last for as long – or be able to clean wastewater.
The Bristol Robotics Lab researchers are aiming to crack this price-per-unit
issue. They built their mobile phone-charging prototype for just a few hundred
pounds – and in two years they hope to have a cheaper prototype that can be
made from locally available materials, anywhere in the world.
So even if answering nature’s call can actually help us make calls for the first
time in history, don’t expect your next toilet to come with built-in phone chargers
– at least, not just yet.