Eco Factor: Urine broken down into hydrogen using electrolysis.
With the dearth of low-emission fuels and the high cost of renewable energy generating system such as photovoltaic cells have tempted automobile manufacturers to look towards sources which are present in abundance. Being the most abundant in the universe, hydrogen has always fantasized car manufacturers as a green fuel which doesn’t bring any performance issues along as well. However, conventional process used to generate hydrogen from water and finally transporting it, aren’t as ecofriendly as the fuel itself is.
Researchers at the Ohio University are trying to solve the riddle by generating hydrogen from a cheap and readily available waste – urine. These researchers believe that electrolyzing urine for hydrogen is easy as compared to generating hydrogen from water as in urine, hydrogen molecules aren’t as tightly held as in water. The system breaks down urea at a voltage of just 0.37 volts, which is significantly less than the 1.23 volts required to split water.
The research was initially conducted on synthetic urine made of dissolved urea, but later the group realized that the process was just as efficient when tried on human urine. The researchers believe that the technology can be scaled-up to generate hydrogen while cleaning up the effluent from sewage plants. The only downside is that urea gets converted into ammonia by bacteria very quickly, which could limit the usefulness of the technique.
Via: RSC
Hydrogen from urine; methane from faeces. Perhaps we should pay people to perform their natural functions. This would be better than workfare or paying people to do nothing. This could have a beneficial redistributive effect on the world economy. One cause for caution is that deserts were created partly by burning animal waste instead of returning manure to the soil, so we should be wary of making this process too efficient.
um... If it takes .37 volts to cause electrolysis in urea and a hydrogen fuel cell produces .8 volts under load that would imply that you could run 2 of these urea electrolysis cells in series off one fuel cell. This would produce 2x as much H2 as was being used to produce it. Interesting.
Mere number of volts does not describe sufficiently the amount of energy being transferred or produced. Drawing conclusions based on only one value in the formula will give inaccurate perception of the process ;)
I remember asking my organic chemistry professor in school why they didn’t do this exact process for energy.
The whole class laughed at me!
Anyway, I’m glad someone is now doing it. I don’t think that coming up with fresh uncontaminated urine will be a problem, just put in a little toilet under the driver’s seat to fill up the fuel tank. Have a lever to empty the old urine daily, rinse to clean, and re-fill!
I also think that they should have a separate toilet/energy converter in every house and use urine to power everyday household things.
There. Now when someone else does this, at least it’s documented that I thought of it too!
You brought out the idea I had as well, that the hydrogen should be produced as soon as possible after exiting the huoman body - not giving the bacteria much chance to start porducing ammonium. By the time the fuild reaches central water cleaning, uch of the valuabel urea will have been lost already.
