The girls who worked on the project say 1 litter of urine gives 6 hours of electricity

Nov 9, 2012 15:19 GMT  ·  By

This year's Maker Fair Africa, which took place on November 5 and 6 in Lagos, Nigeria witnessed the unveiling of a pee-powered generator.

Surprisingly, this innovative and green-oriented energy source was designed and manufactured by a team of four teenage girls: Duro-Aina Adebola, Akindele Abiola, Faleke Oluwatoyin, each 14-years-old, and Bello Eniola, who is one year older than the rest.

Apparently, this pee-powered generator is fully capable of delivering up to six hours of electricity simply by processing as little as one liter of urine.

The Next Web lets us in on all the science talk surrounding this peculiar electricity source.

First of all, urine must be broken down into nitrogen, water and hydrogen, something which is quite easily done with the help of an electrolytic cell.

After that, the hydrogen must be purified with the help of a water filter and sent into a gas cylinder, which sends it into a cylinder of liquid borax and thus makes sure all of the moisture gets removed from it.

The purified and “dried out” hydrogen is then fed into the generator, which does its job and generates electricity.

It may very well be that this pee-powered generator does not constitute a major scientific breakthrough, but one has to admit that it is pretty impressive, especially when one takes into consideration the fact that it was designed and manufactured by four teenage girls.

Truth be told, such generators could really come in handy whenever extreme weather manifestations hit various regions throughout the world and people find themselves lacking access to electricity.

“Maker Faire Africa is both a yearly pan-African maker faire & a community of makers. A compendium of handcrafters that hail from Africa’s tiniest villages to her most expansive urban burgs. What we have in common is an unwavering commitment to origin, ingenuity & innovation,” reads the official website for the event during which this generator made its debut.