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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.'
The URC acts a catalyst in the fuel cell, not the fuel itself. The catalyst is what lowers the activation energy for the reaction and in this case also serves as the conductor which transports the generated electricity for other use.
Urine is not a fuel in TFA. They extracted a few chemicals from it which can be used to process carbon electrodes that allegedly outperform conventional carbon electrodes with platinum catalyst.
Eliminating the need for platinum could considerably reduce costs.