British College Students Found A Way To Turn Pee Into Electricity

A British college has installed a toilet that turns urine into electricity.

According to Mashable, sitting just outside a student bar at the University of the West of England is a toilet containing live bacteria stored in fuel cells.

The micro-organisms feed on urine, and the fuel cells convert the biochemical energy produced during this process into electricity.

Professor Ioannis Ieropoulos, director of the Bristol BioEnergy Centre, said,

This technology is about as green as it gets, as we do not need to utilise fossil fuels and we are effectively using a waste product that will be in plentiful supply.

A light goes on once the electricity is generated, which illustrates the purpose of the joint project between the college and aid agency Oxfam.

Venturing into the night to visit a toilet is often very dangerous in underdeveloped areas because the lack of electricity allows attackers to go about unseen.

Oxfam intends to eliminate this problem by putting the toilets in refugee camps without power, giving residents one less dark area to worry about.

The University of the West of England is located in Bristol, which is known as the green capital of the UK for its many initiatives utilizing renewable energy.

This is the same city in which a bus powered by human poop carries passengers to and from the local airport.

Citations: These British students are making electricity every time they pee (Mashable)