[youtube]http://youtu.be/4LTprRQTKAw[/youtube]
A team of researchers from a university in Bristol discovered an interesting thing, more precisely they managed to charge mobile phones using ... urine. The great discovery is actually a new type of microbial cell that transforms organic matter into electrical energy and can charge almost anything. These energy cells contain a new type of bacteria specially grown by researchers, it consumes organic matter and produces electrons, all as part of a natural process, and those electrons are stored in the new microbial cell.
A group of researchers from the University of the West of England have invented a method of charging mobile phones using urine. Key to the breakthrough is the creation of a new microbial fuel cell (MFC) that turns organic matter – in the case, urine – into electricity. The MFCs are full of specially-grown bacteria that break down the chemicals in urine as part of their normal metabolic process. The bacteria produce electrons as they consume the matter and it is this natural process that creates a small electrical charge to be stored in the MFC.
The cell is in turn stored in a device the size of a car battery, it costs only one pound, but has enough energy just to allow us to make a phone call. In the future, the devices that store them would be smaller, and their installation in public or personal bathrooms could help to quickly charge any type of mobile devices, but only the small ones could work for longer periods of time in the base energy stored in microbial cells.
