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Scientists Invent Urine-Powered Robots
Lucas123 writes "Researchers have already built robots that can use microorganisms to digest waste material, such as rotten fruit and vegetables, and generate electricity from it. This time, a group of scientists has taken that concept to a strange, new place: urine-powered robots. The scientists from the University of the West of England, Bristol and the University of Bristol constructed a system in robots that functions like the human heart, except it's designed to pump urine into the robot's 'engine room,' converting the waste into electricity and enabling the robot to function completely on its own. The researchers hope the system, which can hold 24.5 ml of urine, could be used to power future generations of robots, or what they're calling EcoBots. 'In the city environment, they could re-charge using urine from urinals in public lavatories,' said Peter Walters, a researcher with the University of the West of England. 'In rural environments, liquid waste effluent could be collected from farms.'"
urine powered robots! piss on that!
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Piss poor idea or not?
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Won't that piss off the robots?
Never saw that comming :)
Delta-Mike November Bravo Tango
I didn't realize that compounds found in urine (a waste product, after all) contained enough convertible energy to make the net work output worthwhile. After all, you have to take into consideration the energy expended in gathering and transporting the urine to the robot. The article also mentions using waste water - waste water from what? Is the world just full of all kinds of energy sources that are being discarded, or are we finally realizing that what was once considered 'marginal' capacity for energy harvesting is worth pursuing, since much of the low-hanging fruit (e.g. easily-accessible oil deposits) has already been picked?
(Obligatory comment: I, for one, welcome our new urine-sipping robot overlords. What's that you say? You need several samples for my employment pre-screening?)
Everyone knows urine rusts robots.
welcome our new beer-serving overlords!
Another? Don't mind if I do!
Oh wait, it wasn't the Simpsons, it was Aachi & Ssipak.
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are you aware that you're leaking coolant at an alarming rate? ;)
They neglect to mention how this conversion will be done, or how efficient it will be. "The microorganisms work inside microbial fuel cells where they metabolize the organics, converting them into carbon dioxide and electricity." The robots carry only 24.5 ml of urine, giving about .025 grams of urea to be metabolized. That's not much energy for a robot overlord.
There's a lot of useful chemistry and energy in ammonia (a significant component of urine), because nitrates, or bound nitrogen, have potential energy. Gunpowder manufacture in the middle ages relied on factory-style processing of animal urine.
...our mass transit systems will become self sustaining.
Have gnu, will travel.
"pump urine into the robot's 'engine room,' converting the waste into electricity"
So... Busch Light?
I agree, did no one see The Matrix? I mean come on people!! You're just doing all the work for the machines!
No this stuff is cyclical. You'll see it again in another decade or so.
The system relies on microorganisms (bacteria) in the pump to convert the proteins (organic matter) in the urine) into a fuel source for the fuel cells. I wonder what will happen when the urine from somebody taking antibiotics enters the "system" and disrupts the bacterial balance being used? Or, for that matter, urine containing any number of disease elements?
Of course, once can engineer the bacteria to not be impacted by such things. But then that changes the question to I wonder what will happen when this super bacteria gets out in the wild?
Golden shower addicted gynoids. Get to it, Japan. You know you want to.
A commenter said this stuff is cyclical. Well, I learned a few weeks ago that romans did collect urine from public pots and urinals. Rather than pump it into fuel cells, they just waited till it breaks down to ammonia (our bodies are smart enough to convert ammonia to urea for safe internal storage). Then it was used to maintain clothes or for teeth whitening! ugh. I'm tempted to put ammonia in my mouth but that could be a bit dangerous.
Also why modern urinals were named after a Roman Emperor (Paris, 19th century). He came up with a pee tax, paid when buying urine at the public toilets - a place where endless thousands would come and go each day to piss, fart, shit and socialize.
Maybe we'll go back to something similar too - there's a lot of unused piss and shit and rotten things around, but the supply of it is actually limited.
"We're doomed".
This appears to be the original article: http://iopscience.iop.org/0960-1317/15/9/S06?fromSearchPage=true
Here's the abstract:
"The first urine-activated laminated paper batteries have been demonstrated and reported in this paper. A simple and cheap fabrication process for the paper batteries has been developed which is compatible with the existing plastic laminating technologies or plastic molding technologies. In this battery, a magnesium (Mg) layer and copper chloride (CuCl) in the filter paper are used as the anode and the cathode, respectively. A stack consisting of a Mg layer, CuCl-doped filter paper and a copper (Cu) layer sandwiched between two plastic layers is laminated into the paper batteries by passing through the heating roller at 120 C. The paper battery is tested and it can deliver a power greater than 1.5 mW. In addition, these urine-activated laminated paper batteries could be integrated with bioMEMS devices such as home-based health test kits providing a power source for the electronic circuit."
Looks to me like it's nothing more than the old trick of making a battery out of a lemon or other piece of acidic fruit.
Urine Powered Robotic Overlords!
Morpheus: Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to pee it for yourself.
"Urine powered ___" has been popping up on Slashdot for years now. Once they covered the battery, ( http://slashdot.org/index2.pl?fhfilter=urine+power ), you can kind of keep running these posts on vibrators, flashlights, cell phones, etc. and get the same jokes ad nauseum.
Gently reply
...but it definitely sounds like someone is taking the piss.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Yeah, right buddy. Now are you gonna come quietly or do I have to fill up my tazer?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Brilliant!! THe UK will now be able to use the nations pubs to generate energy. Given the high domestic alcohol consumption the UK will be energy independent in less than a year. It could even become a patriotic duty to drink even more:)
EcoBot? I thought the name was Bear Grylls.
... and design them so that they autonomously can get their fuel happily from the source!
Maybe each time they use a urinal instead of their coat pocket, it could give them a nickel.
Yes, it always has struck me as odd that in some places (Belgium...) you need to pay when you pee. But you leave something there, so they should be paying you, not the other way round...
Okay, plenty of piss oriented jokes here already. Now someone needs to come up with one that is shit powered, so we can revive the stupid kid joke about Artoo-Doodoo.
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Now we know why Marvin feel so sad.
OK, now we know how the Matrix gets powered.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
If the robots require us to be around for their fuel, perhaps they'll refrain from wiping us out...
I am not a number - I am a free man!
... and we collect the urine to power the robots.
Wait that's absurd. You couldn't get the cows to use the urinals.
So we hook up these tubes to the bull penises and ... ummm, you go first.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.