Urine: The Hydrogen Fuel of the Future?
Could this be what the future of fuel looks like?
Pee. What can’t it do? From its reputable use as a fertilizer to questionable use as a hangover cure, urine has way more uses than you might imagine (or even want to know in the first place). Seriously. Some people even claim drinking it makes you healthier. Sounds completely quack to me, but what do I know?
Actually. Scratch that. This I know: drinking your own pee is universally questionable behavior.
But in the realm of interesting uses for your own bodily fluids, using urine as a source of hydrogen to power the cars of the future is a serious undertaking and based on completely sound science.
- » See also: Copenhagen Opens First Hydrogen Fueling Station, Unveils Fleet of Fuel Cell Cars
- » Get Gas 2.0 by RSS or sign up by email.
People have known for a long time that you can generate hydrogen easily by running a current through water to split it into its component parts — oxygen and hydrogen — using a process called electrolysis. The problem is that the amount of energy needed to split the water is relatively large and the materials required are very expensive (although last year some MIT scientists created a brand new cheap catalyst that they say changes all that).
Urine to the rescue. Now some researchers at Ohio University have found that urine makes a much better starting point for generating hydrogen than water. The hydrogen found in urine is bonded much more loosely than in water. So loose, in fact, that by using simple and cheap materials hydrogen can be generated from urine using 1/3 of the voltage needed to make hydrogen from water.
The researchers see a much wider application for this technology in wastewater treatment plants by generating hydrogen while treating the waste simultaneously.
The Ohio University researchers are not alone in their quest for “gold.” Last month we reported on an entry into the Automotive X-Prize that uses urine as its source of hydrogen. Dubbed “ZeroFuel,” the team’s concept seems very similar to the Ohio University researchers approach. Perhaps they should be working together?
Source: Royal Society of Chemistry
Image Credit: FaceMePLS’s Flickr Photostream. Used under a Creative Commons License.
Yeah Bob, street urinals are all over europe, I dont think we will see them here in the states as they wont even let us take a pee on a tree on the side of the highway, yet you will only find a rest area every 250 miles or so if you are lucky. When you gotta pee you gotta pee or else you die! I cant understand the mentality of the states, we all pee right bob even your 6 year old, you yanks are so uptight.
I think I will have to ddrink much water to power my house. Our house will have its own electric power from the family’s pee.
Sounds cool, right?
It’s free and renewable.
Those urinals are very common in foreign countries. They do not look at the body and sex as grossly as US does. To them taking a pee is very natural and not something a 6 year old should have to be sheltered from. The man is not showing his genitals, he is turned foward. This is the major problem with the US, the natural human body is so repulsive to them. Do you hide your daughters eyes from the statue of David?
URINE THE MONEY!!!!!!!!!!
So basically they get their employees to drink the watter and pee it out to make it cost 1/3 of the voltage? What happpens if they drink the pee and pee it out again?
Gives new meaning to the Oscar Mayer “Wiener Wagon.”
Hey neighbor can I borrow a some piss for my lawnmower?
Quick Batman, to the Pee Mobile!
“Time to drain the tank…and fill it at the same time.”
Toyota introduces the next hybrid…the “G-Wiz.”
Potty train your child in new Graco Car Seat.
Yup, my car gets 30 MPP (Mile Per Pee)
Budwizer will replace Union 76 as the official sponsor of Nascar.
My car broke down…it’s passing a kidney stone.
The urinal seems fake. Or maybe it’s just my monitor.
Bob I just got back from western europe, and they were all over the place. Especially in Amsterdam. I thought it was a little odd at first, but to each his own. They are so much more “green” then the U.S. I was astounded to realize how wasteful the American society is as a whole.
I guess this is why Howard Hughes was peeing in jars toward the end of his life. He was really a visionary!
YEAH OHIO UNIVERSITY!! BOBCATS TO THE RESCUE!!! WITH URINE!!! WOOOOO!!!! OU needs some good hangover cures…