Urine-powered generator unveiled at international exhibition

[Peace Voyager]

Go girl power!

www.news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/urine-powered-generator-unveiled-international-exhibition-234718329.html

By Eric Pfeiffer, Yahoo! News | The Sideshow

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Three of the four inventors of the urine-powered generator (Eric Hersman)Four African girls have created a generator that produces electricity for six hours using a single liter of urine as fuel.

The generator was unveiled at last week's Maker Faire in Lagos, Nigeria, by the four teens Duro-Aina Adebola, Akindele Abiola, and Faleke Oluwatoyin, all age 14, and Bello Eniola, 15.
So how exactly does the urine-powered generator work?

• Urine is put into an electrolytic cell, which separates out the 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.

And as for delivering the fuel itself? Well, we'll leave that up to the consumer.
The Maker Faire is a popular event across the African continent, drawing thousands of participants who travel to Lagos to show their inventions and other practical creations.

As the Next Web describes it, the Maker Faire is intended to highlight creations "that solve immediate challenges and problems, and then works to support and propagate them. Put another way, this isn't just a bunch of rich people talking about how their apps are going to change the world."

[CSummer]

I may be weird, but I find this really exciting! Here's the rest of the story:

This is technology developed at the University of Ohio by Gerardine G. Botte, et al. I've been very interested in it for some time because it takes much less energy to get hydrogen from urine or urea than from water. So if you have an efficient means of converting that hydrogen into electricity (e.g., a fuel cell), you can produce substantial amounts of excess energy from the self-powered process. It may also be possible to use the hydrogen as a fuel for cooking or heating.

Anyone want to experiment with this? I have a copy of the patent . . .
See also this web page.

CSummer

www.news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/urine-powered-generator-unveiled-international-exhibition-234718329.html

By Eric Pfeiffer, Yahoo! News | The Sideshow

Expand

Three of the four inventors of the urine-powered generator (Eric Hersman)Four African girls have created a generator that produces electricity for six hours using a single liter of urine as fuel.

The generator was unveiled at last week's Maker Faire in Lagos, Nigeria, by the four teens Duro-Aina Adebola, Akindele Abiola, and Faleke Oluwatoyin, all age 14, and Bello Eniola, 15.
So how exactly does the urine-powered generator work?

• Urine is put into an electrolytic cell, which separates out the 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.

And as for delivering the fuel itself? Well, we'll leave that up to the consumer.
The Maker Faire is a popular event across the African continent, drawing thousands of participants who travel to Lagos to show their inventions and other practical creations.

As the Next Web describes it, the Maker Faire is intended to highlight creations "that solve immediate challenges and problems, and then works to support and propagate them. Put another way, this isn't just a bunch of rich people talking about how their apps are going to change the world."

[Glia]

gives new meaning to the phrase "whiz kids"!

Go girl power!

www.news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/urine-powered-generator-unveiled-international-exhibition-234718329.html

By Eric Pfeiffer, Yahoo! News | The Sideshow

Expand

Three of the four inventors of the urine-powered generator (Eric Hersman)Four African girls have created a generator that produces electricity for six hours using a single liter of urine as fuel.

[Glia]

on a less sophomoric note, it is also a beautiful example of why educating girls and young women, especially in (so-called) developing or third-world areas, is so important.

These young women know how to do research, make plans and implement them, and will likely be leaders in some way of their generation. They will also know about contraception, and good health practices; on average they will have 1-2 children spaced several years apart rather than a string of pregnancies for most of their reproductive years.

gives new meaning to the phrase "whiz kids"!