- Title: NIGERIA: Nigerian teens develop urine-powered generator.
- Date: 21st November 2012
- Summary: LAGOS, NIGERIA (FILE) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF RESIDENT IN LAGOS MAKING USE OF CHARCOAL TO COOK
- Embargoed: 6th December 2012 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Nigeria
- Country: Nigeria
- Topics: Environment,Quirky,Science,Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky,Energy
- Reuters ID: LVA81AEL1O94QXADU36HV9ZVYGHU
- Story Text: A group of Nigerian teenagers have developed a urine powered generator to counter the country's chronic electricity problem. It is estimated that more than half of Nigeria's 160 million citizens have no access to electricity and those who do, cannot guarantee having steady power everyday.
At a high school in Nigeria's commercial capital, Lagos, a group of young students have been working tirelessly in the lab to come up with a power solution for a history of energy problems in their country.
The four teenage girls between the ages of 14 and 15 have created a generator that runs on urine.
They are members of a Junior Engineers, Technicians and Scientists (JETS) club at their school.
Fourteen-year-old, Duro-Aina Adebola says the idea was inspired by a terrible tragedy in eastern Nigeria.
"What brought about this idea is when we saw on the newspaper, a family of five dying from carbon monoxide poisoning and in school we have a JETS (Junior Engineers, Technicians and Scientists) team and we are encouraged to bring up ideas, so we went to our teacher and we asked him that, Uncle what can be done about this idea and then we are taught in chemistry, elementary chemistry that all waste products produce energy, so can this energy be converted into power that can be used to generate energy or generate power so we looked into urine, and we also looked into water but we noticed that in water the hydrogen molecules are tightly bonded together, and in water it takes three volts to break up this hydrogen molecule bond; but in urine, it takes one point three volts, so we opted for urine, since, one, it's a waste product, and if we use urine as we carry out electrolysis, if we use urine, our waste product or our exhaust gas is going to be water and that's not poisonous to our environment, so we opted for urine," Adebola said.
It is estimated that more than half of the country's 160 million people have no access to electricity and those who do, are not guaranteed of its regular supply.
Nigeria has been able to generate 4000 mega watts of electricity in recent years, but this is still inadequate to cater for its teeming populace.
Low income earners use carbon fuels like charcoal or paraffin for cooking while millions of homes have at least one power generating set that needs petrol to run.
There are several power solutions in the market - from wind and solar energy, to battery powered inverters, but these options are capital intensive and not affordable for the majority of Nigerians.
The partial removal of a fuel subsidy in January by Nigeria's President, Goodluck Jonathan which led to one week of strikes and protests, has made petrol more expensive and a recent scarcity in Lagos has worsened the already biting situation.
The young innovators say they are hopeful that their invention will provide an environmentally friendly alternative for Africa's top oil producer.
The urine-powered generator can produce up to six hours of electricity per litre of human waste.
The process separates hydrogen from urine using an electrolytic cell. The hydrogen is then purified, dried and pushed into a generator.
"This hydrogen gas mixture goes into our water filter and the function of the water filter is to remove any impurities from our hydrogen gas mixture. The hydrogen gas mixture then goes into our cylinder here which temporarily stores the gas when ever we need the gas. Then the gas goes into our borax and the function of the borax here is to dry the hydrogen gas to remove any moisture from the gas because if moisture gets into our the engine of our generator, it can damage our generator, and then the gas goes into our generator," explained Adebola.
The generator is still in its trial stages and the girls are under close supervision from their teachers.
They presented their work at the annual Maker Faire Africa held in Lagos this month.
Lawal Olaide, head of science at Doregos Private Academy where the girls are in their junior year of high school, says the use of urine could provide opportunities for the most rural parts of the country.
They have even found a way to make it less unpleasant.
"You know people get repelled at the odour of urine, if it's their own urine, they don't mind, but somebody else's urine, they don't like touching, in order to avoid that we added two molar solution of washing soda at point one percent, inside the urine, once that is done it suppresses the odour of the urine so it has zero odour," he said.
The students worked on this invention for over three months before they worked out the kinks and arrived at a product they could share with the world.
"When we first em made the device, the project, the electrolytic cell exploded because the hydrogen oxygen gas backfired from the generator into the electrolytic cell and that caused the explosion, so when we now made the urine powered generator again, we inserted one way valves in the pipes of the generator, the pipes connecting the electrolytic cell to the generator so as to prevent the backfire so that incase the engine happens to backfire, the hydrogen gas won't be able to go back into the electrolytic cell," said 15-year-old Bello Eniola.
With 10,000 naira (64 dollars) spent on the trial stage, the students are planning to make it more compact so that it will be easier to use by discovering ways to get rid of the tubes and bottles without interfering with its efficiency. - Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
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