American Solar Energy Society » Urine powered generator http://www.ases.org Leading the Renewable Energy Revolution Wed, 10 Apr 2013 22:12:39 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 New Way to Produce Energy: Pee http://www.ases.org/new-way-to-produce-energy-pee/ http://www.ases.org/new-way-to-produce-energy-pee/#comments Tue, 13 Nov 2012 17:30:08 +0000 Ariel Braude http://www.ases.org/?p=10209 It is always impressive when a teenager develops revolutionary technology. It is even more impressive when this technology is designed in a developing country by four young women ages 14 and 15. Maker Faire Africa takes place every year, this year in Lagos, Nigeria, and is an event where makers and innovators alike can show off their  innovations that focus on practicality and the main issues that African’s face. The four girls revolutionized a new way to generate energy: pee. They developed a urine powered generator that functions as followed [Source: TNW]

  • Urine is put into an electrolytic cell, which cracks the urea into nitrogen, water, and hydrogen.
  • The hydrogen goes into a water filter for purification, which then gets pushed into the gas cylinder.
  • The gas cylinder pushes hydrogen into a cylinder of liquid borax which is used to remove the moisture from the hydrogen gas.
  • This purified hydrogen gas is pushed into the generator.
  • 1 Liter of urine gives you 6 hours of electricity.

Photo Credit: The Next Web

What a cool and innovative way to generate energy! It might be a little disgusting to think about at first, but apparently pee is a lot more valuable than we give it credit for. These four girls had the intelligence to develop such a technology, now let’s hope that it can help solve some of the issues that African’s face on a day-to-day basis.

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