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Kitchen Waste to Power Fuel Cells... Eventually

Posted by michael on from the science-fiction dept.

Max Romantschuk writes "Nikkei Electronics Asia reports that "The Research Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth (RITE) and Sharp Corp have developed basic technology for making effective bio-fuel cells". Apparently these fuel cells can be powered by regular kitchen waste. The future for technology like this should be rosy, taking into account the increased pressure put on all areas of power generation for more ecologically friendly alternatives."

1 of 44 comments (clear)

  1. Requires Recycling of Kitchen Waste by tyen · · Score: 5, Informative

    In case anyone else is interested, this is not quite a "dump your kitchen waste into the food processor-like chute" device, a la Mr. Fusion. The article specifically states that the organic material has to be liquified and refined to extract a glucose mixture that the bugs (which are the heart of the device) eat. Thus, if we want to use kitchen waste, it has to be recycled, in much the same manner that people who compost their kitchen waste save it.

    The article goes on to mention that Sharp and Kyoto University hope that "such garbage glucose can be sold at retailers, much the way kerosene is sold today." I'm specifically interested in the refining process, its required energy inputs and its resultant waste stream, but couldn't Google up anything useful because I'm not familiar with organic chemistry.

    Presuming that it doesn't take more energy to refine raw organic material into the glucose stockfeed than the device emits (in which case the utility of the device is its energy storage properties), and the waste stream from the refining process is benign in quantity and in its toxicity properties, this would be a very cool way to generate/store energy. They don't say how long a matchbox-sized device could power an LCD TV, but if the power density is anywhere near pure hydrogen cell-based units, this would be way handy for laptops and other portable devices. However, I'm a little skeptical that it could eventually even partially displace fossil fuels because the sheer quantity of glucose needed is probably impractical to produce.