Up until now, we knew that the only place for urine is the toilet; however, in some highly exceptional cases, it could travel through the mouth of Bear Grylls in the show Man vs. Wild. However, in a recent scientific breakthrough made by the scientists at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory, it has been successfully proved that urine can be used as a source of power to generate electricity for charging your mobile phones. So, it sounds like as long as you are able to urinate your cell phone will never run out of charge.
Claimed to be the first mobile phone powered by microbial fuel cells(MFC), the scientist of the Bristol Robotics Laboratory have successfully charged a mobile phone battery by plugging it into a device which creates fuel by using a bacteria to generate electricity by breaking down the liquid waste. Although the device for charging mobile phones with urine is even larger than a normal car battery, but with more research and studies, scientists will be able to make smaller versions of this device very soon. This revolutionary technology of urine powered cells has the potentiality to replace the batteries in many devices in the future.
Although the idea of using urine as the energy source may lead you to turn up your nose a little bit, but according to the scientists and researchers it is one of the most reliable waste product that does not depend on the unpredictable nature of the sun or the wind. This technology will be reusing a biological waste to create useful energy and one of the most advantageous aspects of this technology is that there will always be more than enough supply of the source of power which is urine.
First published in the journal of Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics of the Royal Society of Chemistry, the researchers of this innovative technology stated that they first grew bacteria on the especially designed anode of carbon fiber which were then used for creating a battery circuit inside a ceramic cylinder. Then, after passing urine through that cylinder, the bacteria helped in producing electrons by breaking down the chemicals and sugar present in urine thereby creating an electrical charge. This charge is then conducted to a capacitor which stores the electrical power. Moreover, as the entire cost of producing one functional fuel cell is only 1pound and the bacteria used in the cell is the same bacteria found in many treatment plants of waste water, so it can be predicted that this device will be one of the cheapest device for generating electrical power. So, it seems like this technology of urine charged batteries can lead to a completely new and eco-friendly future of power generation in coming years.
