Availability fossil fuels diminishing in nature, given the growing need due to advances in technology industries, accompanied by a population explosion is difficult to stop.
Fossil fuels have many weaknesses. First, because it is energy that can not or difficult to update. The process of decomposition of organic material in fossil energy underground to take hundreds or even thousands of years.
Second, the process of exploration requires huge investment costs. Third, emissions from fossil fuels has proved a big hand in increasing global warming.
Therefore, various efforts to seek alternative energy continue to be done. Biotechnology emerged that process into fuel plant extracts. But because it requires land, and the project was dealing directly with the needs of the human stomach, some of the less support it.
Then there are also water treatment technology into fuel, especially developed by Japanese scientists. Now, researchers from Ohio University (USA) is developing fuel-making technology from the urine (urine / urine) human.
Role of Catalyst team, led by Professor Gerardine Botte utilizes elektrolik approach to produce hydrogen from urine. They created a catalyst that could extract hydrogen energy source derived from urine.
“The catalyst not only can be a source of energy for hydrogen-fueled cars in the future, but at the same time to help clean the environment, especially in the handling of waste water,” says Botte.
Although difficult to quantify with certainty, human urine is one of the most abundant waste in the world. Imagine, every person out of about 900-1500 milliliter of urine (ml) per day.
According to the UN, the number of people in the world today is about seven billion inhabitants. If considered every person to one liter of urine, it means a day there are seven billion liters of urine! And, most of the urine that was wasted.
The composition of urine consists of water (96%), materials dissolved in it (electrolyte), especially sodium (Na), as well as the remnants of metabolism, especially urea, cyte and erythrocyte.
Urea is a potential element to serve as hydrogen. Each molecule of urine contains four hydrogen atoms joined to each other. Hydrogen atoms in the urine is even stronger than the hydrogen atoms in water molecules.
Urea electrolysis Botte and his team use electrolysis to separate the molecules, to develop nickel-based electrodes to oxidize urea efficiently. During the electrochemical process, urea is absorbed by the nickel electrode surface, which then flow of electrons needed to break down the molecule.
To break down these molecules needed only electricity market was 0.37 Volt. Electrical energy is much more efficient than the separate elements of water that requires 1.23 volts.
Producing hydrogen from urine is easier than producing hydrogen from water. The method we use does not differ much from the method which has been widely used to water, that is electrolysis, “says Botte.
Botte claim fuel from the urine is very effective and economical. Imagine saka, motor vehicles that use fuel capable of running up to as far as 144 miles per gallon (3.7 liters). “With this technology, soldiers on the battlefield can bring their own fuel from their own urine,” says Botte.
The use of fuel from the urine is clear to save the cost of public transport, private, and corporate. However, despite their raw materials free of charge, devices to process it certainly paid.