14 DAY TRIAL // A group of brainiacs claim to have developed what they call a sun-powered toilet that has high chances to forever transform the lives of as many as 2.5 billion people who live in areas where access to safe and sustainable sanitation is an issue.
The toilet in question does not require any water in order to function, and is said to work by turning human waste into biochar, i.e. a highly porous charcoal, that can be used either to boost agricultural practices and increase crop yields, or to trap carbon dioxide.
Click Green tells us that this innovative toilet uses eight parabolic mirrors to focus concentrated light coming from the Sun onto a quartz-glass rod.
This rod is connected to eight bundles of fiber-optic cables whose job is to heat up a reaction chamber inside which the waste material sits, the same source details.
“We are doing something that has never been done before,” project principal investigator Karl Linden with the University of Colorado said in a statement.
“While the idea of concentrating solar energy is not new, transmitting it flexibly to a customizable location via fiber-optic cables is the really unique aspect of this project,” he added.
Experiments carried out thus far have revealed that each of the eight fiber-optic cables can roll out some 80 – 90 watts of energy, which means that the system's overall output can hit 700 watts, maybe even more.
The reaction chamber is supposed to heat up to well over 600 degrees Fahrenheit (about 315.5 degrees Celsius). Once this happens, the waste material, i.e. feces and urine, get disinfected, and biochar is obtained by boiling water and carbonizing solid material.
This innovative toilet is expected to be unveiled in Delhi, India later this month, and was developed as part of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's “Reinvent the Toilet Challenge.”
At first, the Foundation offered a $777,000 (€559,673) grant to Karl Linden and the other researchers working with him on this project. Later, the scientists received another $1 million (€0.72 million).
Since 2011 until present day, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has funded a total of 16 teams as part of its “Reinvent the Toilet Challenge.”
Commenting on this collaboration, Karl Linden said that, “The great thing about the Gates Foundation is that they provide all of the teams with the resources they need.”
“The foundation is not looking for one toilet and one solution from one team. They are nurturing unique ideas and looking at what the individual teams bring overall to the knowledge base,” the researcher went on to add.