I very much love and enjoy writing about technology news for a job. Every so often there are shining moments in my career and today happens to be one of them. I get the privilege of reporting to you that scientists in Britain have discovered a new way to recharge your smartphone — and it’s with urine. Delightful.
The science behind it is microbial fuel cells, or MFC, which creates power from broken down organic material that comes from bacteria. That bacteria is found in human urine. The technology is being studied at the University of the West of England.
“Urine is chemically very active, rich in nitrogen and has compounds such as urea, chloride, potassium and bilirubin, which make it very good for the microbial fuel cells… One product that we can be sure of an unending supply is our own urine… The concept has been tested and it works – it’s now for us to develop and refine the process so that we can develop MFCs to fully charge a battery,” said Dr. Ioannis Ieropoulos of the Bristol Robotics Laboratory at the University of the West of England.
It’s a very odd concept but hey, it’s no lie that we all have an unlimited supply of it. Don’t think the next time your phone dies you can just take a whiz on the thing and be on your merry way. Unfortunately, it’s not quite that simple. Plus, as of now the technology only generates about a minute of additional power.
I think we’re definitely getting somewhere with this though. In the future, drinking a lot of water might be the key to long battery life.