Urine can be abundant fuel for electricity generation, according to British scientists in the first study of its kind.Researchers from the University of the West of England, Bristol, have described a direct way to generate electricity from urine using Fuel Cells Microbes (MFC). Their research is published in the latest journal Royal Society of Chemistry, Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics.
The purpose of the research team include investigating whether urine could generate electricity through MFC and calculate the energy yield of urine when used in MFA. Estimates that 6.4 trillion liters of urine produced each year, sparked the idea to highlight the urine as a potential alternative energy source, which is often neglected so far. Three MFC is made of acrylic with 25ml anode and cathode chambers used in the experimental study. Anode and cathode electrodes are connected via a small pump to 1l bottle container. Water is added to the large volume of urine, ranging from 25ml to 300ml, into the re-circulation reservoir bottle, or with a small volume, 0.1ml to 10ml, which is injected directly into the anode hole.
Urine is used fresh or at most a week from donations and samples, among the donations per 400-500ml, taken from a healthy volunteer and have a normal diet and had no history of urinary tract or kidney disease. Before the injection of 25ml of urine, the MFC produces 0.9 miliamper per square meter (mA / m²), which increased to 2.9 mA / m² after an hour of the injection point. Amount of urine is enough energy to power continuously for three days, at which point the performance began to rise and return to the level of power output produced MFC before injection. The scientists showed that the addition of 25ml of fresh urine takes three days to be used in a single MFC 25ml volume. To pile MFC 10, the same sample takes hours to be utilized. Based on daily urine output of 2.5 L per person, it would require about 300 MFC to utilize an average daily production of a human being. The research team at Bristol have been experimenting for two years and stated that the response to the addition of fresh urine has been consistent as a whole.
For single MFC used in this study, the conversion efficiency has showed an inverse relationship with the number of additional urine as fuel. To increase the volume up to 25ml of urine, directly to electricity conversion efficiency ranges from 60 to 70 percent, while for volumes greater than 700ml, efficiency ranged from 22 to 30 percent. Lead researcher Ioannis Ieropoulos said, "With the global annual production rate as much as trillions of liters, this is a technology that can help change the world. The impact of this could be enormous, not only for industrial wastewater treatment, but also for the community as a paradigm shift in the perception of waste. "
Copy From Fakta Ilmiah
