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. The electricity output from MFCs is relatively small and so far we have
only been able to store and accumulate these low levels of energy into
capacitors or super-capacitors, for short charge/discharge cycles. This is the first time we have been able to directly charge the battery
of a device such as a mobile phone and it is indeed a breakthrough,
researchers said. Scientists believe that the technology has the future potential to be
installed into domestic bathrooms to harness the urine and produce
sufficient electricity to power showers, lighting or razors as well as
mobile phones. The study was reported in the Royal Society of, ‘Chemistry Journal of
Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics

Waoh. That's a cool one. But I am not sure I can use that type of phone.

oloto:
Waoh. That's a cool one. But I am not sure I can use that type of phone.

Lol