A phone charger that’s powered by urine

Engineers at Bristol University have developed a microbial fuel cell (MFC) that turns organic matter, in our case urine, into electricity. The fuel cell is equipped on a mobile charger, and its creators envision the device being implemented in various other applications that can recycle urine. Restaurants, bars and various other buildings that employ public toilets might collect the urine in special containers which could then be converted into useful energy. The MFCs work by breaking down the urine through the specially-grown bacteria’s metabolic process. The bacteria produce electrons as they consume the matter and it this natural process that creates a small electrical charge to be stored in the MFC. “No one has harnessed power from urine to do this so it’s an exciting discovery,” said Dr Ioannis Ieropoulos, an engineer at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory where the fuel cells were developed. “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 reusing waste to create energy. One product that we can be sure of an unending supply is our own urine.”

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