The socks will turn urine into electricity
Last reviewed: 16.05.2018
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Bioenergetics offered a very specific way of charging mobile devices, for which only a pair of socks and ... Are required. Urine.
At a research center in western England, a team of specialists has already started experiments. They use a pair of socks, urine and small microbial fuel cells (MFCs) to generate electricity, and the first results have already begun to appear - an unusual system with the help of a transmitter sends wireless signals to a desktop PC.
Fuel cells that work on the basis of microorganisms capable of generating energy have become known relatively recently and the scientific group headed by Ioannis Hieropoulos is not the first to conduct such studies. Several years ago, the team of Professor Hieropoulos with the help of MHE and urine charged a mobile phone, however, then experiments were conducted on the desktop, but now scientists have stated that their innovation is the first "independent system", based on the source of supply of microbial fuel cell technologies.
The main part of the specific power supply system is MHE, in which electricity is produced from various organic substances. Inside the researchers put a mixture of bacteria that can exist without oxygen, as the supply of food microorganisms began to generate electricity.
The team of Hieropoulos worked on the technology in a rather long time - about 30 years, first of all the scientists had to provide large volumes of energy. As a result, scientists came to the conclusion that the practical level of power is achieved by combining several small MTEs.
Using the usual pair of socks, bioenergetics built in soft MTEs into a specially designed bracelet that is worn on their feet, and a pump is built into the heel of socks, which works like the heart of primitive fish. As explained by scientists, this structure is necessary to ensure the normal life of microbes.
The principle of operation of a specific power source is as follows: when a urine moves through a microbial fuel cell, electricity is generated, in other words, when the food (urine) arrives, microbes begin to reproduce energy. According to scientists, their system is capable of producing enough energy, in order to send a signal after a short time to the receiving module, which is controlled by a computer. By the way, urine in motion leads to ordinary walking.
According to experts themselves, their work opens up new opportunities for using waste.
In this case, urine can be used to power mobile electronics. Professor Hieropoulos also noted that studies in this field have shown that MFE can easily become the basis of the food system, in addition, such elements were used to create a system for transmitting human coordinates in emergency situations, and, as experiments showed, the system proved to be quite effective.
But in the case of the new development of the group of Hieropoulos, the system will start to work only after the fuel element receives the necessary food, i.e. Urine, which means that to recharge your gadget you will need to urinate in your socks.