Four Nigerian teenage girls have invented a generator powered which can use a litre of urine to produce six hours of electricity.
The girls – Duro-Aina Adebola,
Akindele Abiola, Faleke Oluwatoyin, and Bello Eniola displayed the invention at
the annual event Maker Faire Africa, held in Lagos.
According to the girls, the
idea of using urine as fuel was not new but Adeola, Abiola, Oluwatoyin and
Eniola came up with a practical way to put the idea into action and many
households can utilise it.
RusselSmith, a leading provider
of Integrated Energy Solutions disclosed this, adding that Adebola, a
14-year-old said the idea of using urine to produce electricity started when
she read an article about a family of five who lost their lives.
She said that the family
members died as a result of carbon monoxide poisoning as they inhaled fumes
emanating from their generator while asleep.
She said she was worried by the
incident thinking about how she could help to prevent similar occurrences from
happening in the future concluding that the way out was to find another power
source that does not release carbon monoxide.
Adebola said she related the
idea with her three friends – Abiola, Oluwatoyin who are also 14-years-old and
Eniola, a 15-year-old.
The four friends named
themselves “Fantastic Four” and began their journey to develop a solution which
later on became successful and celebrated even on a global scale.
The Fantastic Four stated that
they told their science teacher, Olaide Lawal, about their idea, who encouraged
them that the indication was possible.
With this inspiration, the teen
girls began experimenting with possible materials that could produce power
instead of relying on carbon. They said that it dawned on them that rocket
engines run on hydrogen.
According to the girls, the
premise of their invention was that if hydrogen was the raw material in their
generator, the end product would be water. The team said after they
experimented with water, they encountered a hurdle.
The team revealed that because
water produces low hydrogen, they concluded that if they electrolysed water,
the generator would lose 1.25 volts per cycle.
Adebola said she suggested to
the team that they should experiment with a material with no cost anything but
will generate the power needed to run domestic activity. It was at this point
that the team considered the idea of using urine as the source of raw material.
Adebola mentioned that they
initially built a system consisting of an electrolytic cell, which consisted of
an old car battery. The system also had filters and pipes as well as an empty
gas storage tank.
“We then reconfigured our
petrol-based generator and carried out our first experiment – and then we faced
another huge challenge as the cell exploded,” the girls said.
“We kept on checking our
process and setup until Mr. Lawal pointed out our error: The hydrogen-oxygen
gas mixture was returning to the cell. We then inserted one-way valves into the
pipes to ensure a one-directional flow of the gas mixture, and it worked,” they
added.
The Fantastic Four said when
they first exhibited their invention publicly, people did not have hope it
would work. But they remained determined and made improvements to it. They
gained national attention when they exhibited their invention once again at the
Maker Faire Africa in 2012.
Since the exhibition, the
Fantastic Four has earned both national and international awards for their
urine-powered generators. The Lagos State government also expressed the desire
to fund the invention to be developed on a large scale for it to be used in
homes.
The teen girls expressed their
gratitude to their school, Doregos Private Academy stating that they provided
the funding, transportation, and moral support for them to pursue the dream.
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