Scientists working at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory, which is a collaboration between the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol) and the University of Bristol, have developed a novel way of charging mobile phones using urine as the power source to generate electricity, see video.
Waste to Real Energy: the first MFC powered mobile phone is published in the Royal Society of Chemistry ‘Journal of Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics’.
Dr Ioannis Ieropoulos from UWE Bristol is an expert at harnessing power from unusual sources using microbial fuel cells. He says, “We are very excited as this is a world first, no-one has harnessed power from urine to do this so it’s an exciting discovery. Using the ultimate waste product as a source of power to produce electricity is about as eco as it gets.”