Image credit: David Lat
If you’ve read GeekDad for any amount of time, you know we’re huge fans of, and participants in, the Maker movement. We especially love Maker Faires, annual events where scientists, artists, and engineers of every stripe come together to share their projects. So it’s been especially fun to see Maker Faires popping up all over, and going international. Like Maker Faire Africe 2012, which just finished up this last weekend in Lagos, Nigeria.
One awesome story making waves out of the event is of the four teen girl Makers, Duro-Aina Adebola, Akindele Abiola, Faleke Oluwatoyin, and Bello Eniola, who have hacked together their own system for converting urine to electric power. The chemical process is pretty straightforward: an electrolytic cell is used to break the urea down into hydrogen gas, nitrogen, and water. The hydrogen gas is dehydrated through a borax solution, and then fed into a standard generator which burns it to produce electricity. Supposedly they can get six hours of power from a liter of urine. Of course, working with pure hydrogen can be an explosive experience, so there may be some important safety precautions required, but can you imagine a project like this turning into a product that ends up changing the world for the better? This is just a wonderful example of ingenuity and the Maker spirit infecting people, young and old, all over the world. More power (and pee) to them!
You can read more of the details over at The Next Web.
