Four 14 year girls invented a urine powered generator at this year’s Maker Faire Africa held in Lagos, Nigeria.
Duro-Aina Adebola, Akindele Abiola and Faleke Oluwatoyin all 14 and Bello Eniola 15 were the inventors behind the generator which runs for six hours on 1 Liter of urine. But do not try this at home yet.
According to the girls,” Urine is put into an electrolytic cell, which separates out the hydrogen. The hydrogen goes into a water filter for purification, which then gets pushed into the gas cylinder. The gas cylinder pushes hydrogen into a cylinder of liquid borax, which is used to remove the moisture from the hydrogen gas. This purified hydrogen gas is pushed into the generator.”
Though this looks like an amazing breakthrough in times of high fuel prices and electricity costs, introducing it for use in communities might take years or may just not happen at all and so fuel and electricity bills are still here.
Solar has been around for centuries too, but no large scale harvesting has been done on the continent, therefore it will be years when gas stations and power companies sell urine.
Maker Faire Africa Lagos took place on November 5 to 6 and brought together creative innovators, designers, and hackers. The inventions have to be original and problem solving. Maker Faire Africa has been held in Nairobi, Cairo and Accra and is a pan African fair for makers of things, as long as they are original.
