The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which provides hundreds of millions of dollars to education-related endeavors, especially the development and promotion of the Common Core State Standards, has invested in the second stage of a project to develop (see video) cellphones that are powered by electricity transformed from the chemical bonds in urine (research paper), Forbes reports.
The main aim of this proposal is to recover useful levels of electrical energy directly from urine, and thus convert an existing—entirely unexploited—waste into a sustainable fuel for the future, with concomitant clean water production.
To achieve this, Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs) utilize specialized, naturally-abundant microbes housed within the anodic chamber of the fuel cell as the bio-catalyst. The microbes are fed urine directly and, as part of their normal metabolic process, consume the urine, which generates electrons and, when connected to a cathode, allows a path for these electrons, generating current. In addition, the passing of these electrons and protons through an ion-selective membrane (which separates the anodic and cathodic chambers of the MFC) reacts with air, generating clean water.
Technically, this is a sound idea. A renewable resource, urine, can have its chemical bonds transformed into electrical energy, which can be stored in a battery and run machines. With biofuel motors, the question has been one of scalability: How much urine would it take and how much would it cost to produce a certain amount of electricity? Cellphones don’t use a lot of electricity, so the needs will be smaller than those of a motor that runs a car, but that exact formula is what the second phase of this project will determine.
How the funding came about was the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation sponsored a contest for grants in clean-earth technology. The foundation then named a team at the University of the West of England, Bristol, among five winners of that contest, known as the Grand Challenges Explorations scheme, which focuses on water, sanitation, and hygiene.
Investors will likely view this idea in the future in terms of regions where drinkable water is in short supply. Since the conversion system being developed produces clean water as a by-product, it may be possible to produce water while making electricity. It also may be possible to use the system as a filter for sewage because all the products from the conversion can be put back into the environment safely.
More than 2 billion people on earth don’t have adequate toilet facilities, so a great deal of human waste ends up in the environment, untreated. Says Brian Arbogast, director of the Water, Sanitation & Hygiene team at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation: “Innovations don’t need to be complicated or expensive in order to be impactful, which is why we are so excited about the range of approaches these projects represent.”
Investors consider it unlikely to find a widespread use for this technology in large population centers, but that’s not really where the need is greatest, as Mr Arbogast said. If it works in remote places, though, “urine-tricity” might find a niche in more places. Most big ideas start small.
