Power Your Car With Pee

News Type: Event — Seeded on Fri Jul 17, 2009 3:31 PM EDT

Article Source: Wired News

odd-news, battery, fuel-cell, ev, hydrogen-fuel

A scientist at Ohio University has developed a catalyst capable of extracting hydrogen from urine. That's right. Urine. Now you can fill one tank while draining another.

Garardine Botte claims the device uses significantly less energy than is needed to extract hydrogen from water and says it could power hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in the near future. Her electrolyzer uses a nickel-based electrode to extract hydrogen from urea (NH2)2CO, the main component in urine. Hydrogen is less tightly bound to the nitrogen in urea than to the oxygen in water, so the electrolyzer needs just 0.37 volts across the cell to oxidize the urea, according to Botte. That's less than half the amount of energy in an AA battery and considerably less than the 1.23 volts needed to split water

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{"commentId":8268061,"authorDomain":"desertjeeper49"}

Desertzonie

How cool is this -- drink beer and run your car for miles. OK, except for the DWI --- LOL

{"commentId":8268061,"threadId":"629063","contentId":"3034919","authorDomain":"desertjeeper49"}

2 votes

#1 - Fri Jul 17, 2009 3:32 PM EDT

{"commentId":8320300,"authorDomain":"PeterMerel"}

Peter Merel

Damn Newsvine - how is it that BS about the President wearing jeans makes the front page while incredibly cool stuff like this languishes unread? Very well spotted, lee!

Now a bit of back of the envelope figuring says that, at 60 MPG, and with a family of 4 producing, on average, about 3 gallons of pee per day, this technology might supply most peoples' daily transportation needs.

{"commentId":8320300,"threadId":"629063","contentId":"3034919","authorDomain":"PeterMerel"}

2 votes

#1.1 - Tue Jul 21, 2009 9:49 AM EDT

{"commentId":8320682,"authorDomain":"desertjeeper49"}

Desertzonie

Yeah -- finding this stuff on Newsvine can be a bit tough but I like these articles since they are hard to put a political / religious spin on -- What I see in articles like this is the positive thinking needed to push technology forward. We need more "we can" and less "that won't work".

{"commentId":8320682,"threadId":"629063","contentId":"3034919","authorDomain":"desertjeeper49"}

2 votes

#1.2 - Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:06 AM EDT

{"commentId":8329702,"authorDomain":"nkycarbon"}

iconoclasm

This is a great find. I found some more information here.

http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2009/July/02070902.asp

Even if it can't power cars the fact that they found a better way to extract Potassium Nitrate (aka saltpeter .. fertilizer) and produce H2 on the side is amazing in it's own right.

I didn't really see the details on how they get the urine. which is 95% water, down to urea. Also tracking where the phosphorous winds up would be interesting.

{"commentId":8329702,"threadId":"629063","contentId":"3034919","authorDomain":"nkycarbon"}

2 votes

#1.3 - Tue Jul 21, 2009 3:00 PM EDT

{"commentId":8330640,"authorDomain":"desertjeeper49"}

Desertzonie

As with any "new" idea there will be bugs to be worked out but the research seems to be continuing. There are even some other folks working along the same lines:

http://gas2.org/2009/06/23/zerofuel-car-uses-pee-for-power/

But there is not a lot of info from this group and their website has nothing but press blurb stuff.

{"commentId":8330640,"threadId":"629063","contentId":"3034919","authorDomain":"desertjeeper49"}

1 vote

#1.4 - Tue Jul 21, 2009 3:30 PM EDT

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DESERTZONIE

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Power Your Car With Pee

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