Scientists Invent Urine-Powered Robots 123
Lucas123 writes "Researchers have already built robots that can use microorganisms to digest waste material, such as rotten fruit and vegetables, and generate electricity from it. This time, a group of scientists has taken that concept to a strange, new place: urine-powered robots. The scientists from the University of the West of England, Bristol and the University of Bristol constructed a system in robots that functions like the human heart, except it's designed to pump urine into the robot's 'engine room,' converting the waste into electricity and enabling the robot to function completely on its own. The researchers hope the system, which can hold 24.5 ml of urine, could be used to power future generations of robots, or what they're calling EcoBots. 'In the city environment, they could re-charge using urine from urinals in public lavatories,' said Peter Walters, a researcher with the University of the West of England. 'In rural environments, liquid waste effluent could be collected from farms.'"
first post! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:first post! (Score:4, Funny)
I piss on our new Urine Powered Robotic Overlords!
No one can be told what the Matrix is... (Score:2)
Urine Powered Robotic Overlords!
Morpheus: Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to pee it for yourself.
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Quick. Divert all remaining power supplies to weapons and fire!
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Were the researchers "Gimps" in rubber, a la Pulp Fiction?
Funny people find reasons to play in pee.
Makes ya think, donut?
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Frosty piss appropriate here? (Score:4, Funny)
Piss poor idea or not?
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I think it's a great idea. Now I have a plausible reason for sticking my dick into my robot.
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Piss poor idea or not?
Piss up a robot takes on a new meaning.
Re:Frosty piss appropriate here? (Score:5, Funny)
You meant "piss off", surely.
Re:Frosty piss appropriate here? (Score:5, Funny)
Urine trouble now!
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Brownie points for you.
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Re: Frosty piss appropriate here? (Score:2)
I lol'd
Such degrading fuel sources! (Score:1)
Re:Such degrading fuel sources! (Score:5, Funny)
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Futurama never stated what robot beer was made out of...
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Budweiser ?
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Bender (Score:5, Funny)
I for one... (Score:3)
Another? Don't mind if I do!
What I was thinking (Score:2)
Now we know why Marvin feel so sad.
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No this stuff is cyclical. You'll see it again in another decade or so.
Molecules with sufficient energy? (Score:3, Insightful)
I didn't realize that compounds found in urine (a waste product, after all) contained enough convertible energy to make the net work output worthwhile. After all, you have to take into consideration the energy expended in gathering and transporting the urine to the robot. The article also mentions using waste water - waste water from what? Is the world just full of all kinds of energy sources that are being discarded, or are we finally realizing that what was once considered 'marginal' capacity for energy harvesting is worth pursuing, since much of the low-hanging fruit (e.g. easily-accessible oil deposits) has already been picked?
(Obligatory comment: I, for one, welcome our new urine-sipping robot overlords. What's that you say? You need several samples for my employment pre-screening?)
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After all, you have to take into consideration the energy expended in gathering and transporting the urine to the robot.
Your robot is also your urinal. No energy expended in transportation or gathering, any expended energy is already expended.
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Your robot is also your urinal. No energy expended in transportation or gathering, any expended energy is already expended.
Next up: Sex robots that drink your pee!
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Suction action powered by the last guys load.
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Your robot is also your urinal.
OK, but a 'robot' that was small enough to carry around with you would seem unlikely to produce much power. (The article implied a small robot - maybe I'm incorrect.) Maybe just enough to occasionally charge your cellphone? You're gonna carry around a bag of pee to charge your cell?
I somehow hoped for something (ultimately) on a larger scale.
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After all, you have to take into consideration the energy expended in gathering and transporting the urine to the robot. The article also mentions using waste water - waste water from what?
You have to take these considerations, but the alternative ones too : it means you don't need batteries (rechargeable - with limited lifespan - or disposable), or don't need a solar panel, or a significant infrastructure. People around it make do, be it in a small african or indian village, or a very remote area. Building a battery or solar panel and shipping it to the area of interest uses a ton of energy too. I'm more concerned about the fuel cell, which would have to be cheap, durable and without mainten
I, for one, welcome (Score:1)
our new PissBot overlords.
Bah (Score:2)
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Simpsons did it! (Score:2)
Oh wait, it wasn't the Simpsons, it was Aachi & Ssipak [wikipedia.org].
Sir... (Score:2)
The numbers don't add up. (Score:2)
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According to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], it is 9.3 g/L so you are off by a factor of 10. It should be 0.23 gm of urea.
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Not so very strange (Score:4, Interesting)
There's a lot of useful chemistry and energy in ammonia (a significant component of urine), because nitrates, or bound nitrogen, have potential energy. Gunpowder manufacture in the middle ages relied on factory-style processing of animal urine.
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There's a lot of useful chemistry and energy in ammonia (a significant component of urine), because nitrates, or bound nitrogen, have potential energy. Gunpowder manufacture in the middle ages relied on factory-style processing of animal urine.
Urine Connections [slashdot.org]
So the sewer bots will be powered by urine and manufacture explosives from the nitrates and will be equipped with sensors to smell each other. So the robot overlords will be under? So next we have the proof of concept hack of a sewer bot to create a distributed denial of existence (DDOE) attack.
Life is becoming a free science fiction movie. I smell a sequel with methane powered poop bots.
Finally .... (Score:4, Funny)
...our mass transit systems will become self sustaining.
Re:Finally .... (Score:4, Funny)
The new motto:
We put the stain in sustainable.
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...our mass transit systems will become self sustaining.
Fit for a movie.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/ [imdb.com]
So what you're saying... (Score:2)
"pump urine into the robot's 'engine room,' converting the waste into electricity"
So... Busch Light?
I wonder what will happen... (Score:3)
The system relies on microorganisms (bacteria) in the pump to convert the proteins (organic matter) in the urine) into a fuel source for the fuel cells. I wonder what will happen when the urine from somebody taking antibiotics enters the "system" and disrupts the bacterial balance being used? Or, for that matter, urine containing any number of disease elements?
Of course, once can engineer the bacteria to not be impacted by such things. But then that changes the question to I wonder what will happen when this super bacteria gets out in the wild?
Assignment for Japan (Score:2)
Collecting urine in Ancient Rome (Score:3)
A commenter said this stuff is cyclical. Well, I learned a few weeks ago that romans did collect urine from public pots and urinals. Rather than pump it into fuel cells, they just waited till it breaks down to ammonia (our bodies are smart enough to convert ammonia to urea for safe internal storage). Then it was used to maintain clothes or for teeth whitening! ugh. I'm tempted to put ammonia in my mouth but that could be a bit dangerous.
Also why modern urinals were named after a Roman Emperor (Paris, 19th century). He came up with a pee tax, paid when buying urine at the public toilets - a place where endless thousands would come and go each day to piss, fart, shit and socialize.
Maybe we'll go back to something similar too - there's a lot of unused piss and shit and rotten things around, but the supply of it is actually limited.
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For the records, the roman emperor was Vespasien, he arguably said about this tax : "money has no odour"
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A couple of nuns who were nursing sisters had gone out to the countryside to minister to an outpatient. On the way back they were a few miles from the convent when they ran out of gas.
They were standing beside their car on the shoulder of the road when a truck approached. Seeing ladies of the cloth in distress, the driver stopped to offer his help. The nuns explained they needed some gas. The driver of the truck said he would gladly drain some from his tank, but he didn
C-3Pee-O (Score:1)
Not a very BFD (Score:1)
This appears to be the original article: http://iopscience.iop.org/0960-1317/15/9/S06?fromSearchPage=true [iop.org]
Here's the abstract:
"The first urine-activated laminated paper batteries have been demonstrated and reported in this paper. A simple and cheap fabrication process for the paper batteries has been developed which is compatible with the existing plastic laminating technologies or plastic molding technologies. In this battery, a magnesium (Mg) layer and copper chloride (CuCl) in the filter paper are used as
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Looks to me like it's nothing more than the old trick of making a battery out of a lemon or other piece of acidic fruit.
Indeed. And in these batteries (and in most commercial batteries too...), the energy does not actually come from the electrolyte (the liquid) but from the electrodes, which are slowly "consumed" as the battery discharges.
Recycling Old Slashdot Stories (Score:2)
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Yeah, right buddy. Now are you gonna come quietly or do I have to fill up my tazer?
It's not April Fools' Day... (Score:3)
...but it definitely sounds like someone is taking the piss.
Leveraging UK pubs for energy (Score:2)
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So it'd better to use the ethanol directly for fuel... but that doesn't work either, a currently the machines needed to work the farms where the grain for the ethanol is grown consume more energy than is contained in the product, and this industry only works w
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Maybe each time they use a urinal instead of their coat pocket, it could give them a nickel.
Yes, it always has struck me as odd that in some places (Belgium...) you need to pay when you pee. But you leave something there, so they should be paying you, not the other way round...
Man Vs. Wild (Score:1)
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Why don't they make semen-powered robots instead.. (Score:2)
Shit Powered Robots Next (Score:2)
Okay, plenty of piss oriented jokes here already. Now someone needs to come up with one that is shit powered, so we can revive the stupid kid joke about Artoo-Doodoo.
Matrix (Score:1)
OK, now we know how the Matrix gets powered.
This may save us! (Score:1)
If the robots require us to be around for their fuel, perhaps they'll refrain from wiping us out...
Ok, the cows pee in to a urinal ... (Score:2)
... and we collect the urine to power the robots.
Wait that's absurd. You couldn't get the cows to use the urinals.
So we hook up these tubes to the bull penises and ... ummm, you go first.