Picture it: You're taking one of your infamous road trips when suddenly the all familiar tune starts playing in your head "Gotta go, gotta go, gotta go right now". At the same time you notice you're a bit low on fuel. But there are no rest stops or gas stations around. No problem, you just pull over and fill your tank with your own 'special fuel'. Yes, you read it right. Power your vehicle with your own urine.
As we are all aware, scientist and automobile manufacturers across the globe are looking for a more sustainable source of fuel. They have been testing out a multitude of alternative fuel sources, one of them being hydrogen. Scientists have been developing ways to extract hydrogen from water. However a major hurdle in this development is the amount of energy needed to power the equipment to extract the hydrogen. Once extracted the next obstacle is how to distribute it.
Well, Garadine Bottle, a scientist at Ohio University, has developed a catalyst capable of extracting hydrogen from urine. How? Let's give you a minor flash back to high school science class, shall we? Extracting hydrogen from the water molecules is possible but it takes much more energy because the bond to oxygen is tighter. Bottle has found that the hydrogen in urea is not as tightly bonded to nitrogen. Therefore, using a nickel-based electrode, the device can extract the hydrogen with less energy. It only uses less than half the amount of energy in a AA battery (0.37 volts) and less than 1.23 volts used to extract hydrogen from water.
With the device using less energy, Bottle is able to make it small enough to integrate into an automobile. The current prototype is about the size of 2 CD jewel cases and can produce up to 500 milliwatts of power. According to wired.com, Bottle stated that "An electrolyzer built into a car would eliminate the need for a hydrogen storage tank, and with the right partnership, I believe we could have pee-powered cars capable of 60 miles per gallon on the road within a year.” Since the body produces 2-3 liters of urine a day, it becomes one of the most abundant fuel sources on the planet.
Though Bottle is working with the Department of Defense to develop electrolyzer technology for military use, she hasn't gotten much federal funding for the project. However, because the technology is so light, conventional car companies have a variety of ways they can incorporate it into their cars. Like all of the other green technology emerging, we'll just have to wait and see what becomes of this.
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