Fuel Cells From Nanomaterials Made From Human Urine
New submitter turning in circles (2882659) writes 'Carbon based fuel cells require carbon doped with other elements, normally platinum, for oxygen reduction reactions. Urine contains carbon with an exciting splash of nitrogen, sulfur, potassium, silicon, and so on, and you don't have to manufacture it: the stuff just comes out by itself. In an article published this week in an open journal, researchers from Korea reported a new nanomaterial for fuel cells, which they dub "Urine Carbon." Upon drying, and then heating at 1000C, and rinsing of salts, the resulting Urine Carbon porous nanostructures outperformed Carbon/platinum in electrodes.'
I'm sure you can get some kind of medical treatment for that
If I had a DeLorean... I would probably only drive it from time to time.
That settles it, time to piss in someone's gas tank.
Time to offend someone
Now there's a renewable energy source.
I can see bars having a "pee here for the environment" campaign.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
With enough energy, you can convert water, urine, or almost any common chemical into a fuel cell and make the headlines. However, that does not make it practical. There are always the problems of efficiency, scalability, portability, and sometimes availability (as in the case of urine and bacteria). In other words, don't pee in your gas tank any time soon.
Buy nano particles here! Cheaper than anywhere else!
So the material is made porous by heating and removing salt particles. Nice! There can't be much material left after drying though, I'm curious how much the energy density of said yield would be. I did spin through the paper, I noticed the 300-400mg/L yield but not the energy density, did anyone else catch it amongst the jargon?
Remember kids: What's right isn't as important as what's profitable.
Sure! Give the machines some more incentive ..
No....I was just charging my car.
& etc.
...the challenger, Urea from Korea!
Well, the Waterless No Flush Urinals will make the perfect collection device! At least as long as they can keep the idiots from throwing their cigarette butts in them! Just connect the plumbing to a collection tank instead of the sanitary sewer system!
That's a way to get excited! "Hey Jim, what gets your grid excited? Well Bill, its the SPLASH! Hey Jim! Watch where you point that thing! Hey! You didn't have to do that! Look at me! Well you got me first! " To the joy of engineering students everywhere, the beer halls are suddenly a source of unspeakable power (they can't talk while tipping the glass, lest they risk a spill). Despite the claims though, it still sounds like a pissy solution.
Here it comes, wait for it.
I for one welcome our new beer passing robotic overlords
namely, a lovely line from Tom Clancy concerning a black helicopter pilot where he shouldn't be without enough fuel to scat... "Son, right now I'd burn piss if I had enough."
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Well, if ((age < 2) || (age > 65))
sig: sauer
Awww... just piss on it.
There's that potassium, and phosphorus.. Both are major elements used in fertilizers for industrial agriculture, i.e. we rely on them for cheap and abundant food. So collecting and harvesting piss could become very important.
But I'm not so sure we want to be around for number two...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Sorry, couldn't resist.
taking the piss.
This is valuable stuff, now that it has a market use. And to think that I wrote it off as waste and was just pissing it away.
... fish being microwaved in the employee kitchen. Must by buying Fabreeze by the pallet. "Bring me my yellow lab coat!!!"
urine is fuel? let's imagine:
your employer could recycle your urine to pay energy bills
bathrooms would expose a device were you piss in (in order to recycle and separate from the "other stinky thing")
you can be sued for pissing outside the above device (in public wcs)
no more pay-per-piss toilettes
a new job would come out: pisser
homeless could beg less (due to the above "job")
stooners would be dragged out from public toilettes (they'r blocking energy harvesting)
in order to piss more, people would drink more water, which is healthy
no more people pissing in the street (would be wasted money)
greedy people would piss in bottles
no more free pissing Pr0n (wasting "energy", you mad!)
fetish escorts price would increase
piss mining era (third world exploitations)
to patent my urine.
I recall reading a recipe for case-hardening iron in a Scientfic American article from 1890's. The process involved packing a crucible with iron, straw, and horse feces and urine, then heating in a furnace.
I guess these ingredients were readily available to black smiths of the time.
How do you accelerate the development of fuel cells as much as humanly possible? Turn it into a pissing contest!
Ezekiel 23:20
Bottle, after bottle, after bottle.
Oh ya baby, I went there.
North Korea just wants to see the rest of the world spend hours in the lab trying to replace platinum with pee. They're probably laughing their butts off right now.
On a more serious note, how stable is their new fuel cell? If the electrodes need to be replaced frequently, then it won't really be any improvement. The linked article claims the electrodes are more durable, but I'd like to see someone corroborate that. This may be difficult to replicate because they used human urine, the composition of which can change drastically based on diet.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
I would think this would work better for deflector shields than the moon swirls in the next article, but maybe the "swirlies" are related.
...seriously.
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
The most alcoholic (and for that matter any illicit substance abusing) student types are those in business and law. They are to be feared. Engineers come a distant third.
I'd say "pissash" rolls of the tongue easier than "urine carbon," but the metaphor is too disgusting.
There's just no way this research is not winning an IgNobel Prize. It fits the ethos: first it makes you laugh, then it makes you think.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
http://roadroving.com/2010/01/24/gerard-butler-solves-the-energy-crisis/
This has been done before. In the 70s there was a blues band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Ho! Haha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Ha! Thrust!
With methane. Surely our cars will be a piece of shit, err correction, piss and shit.
I'm blind already