Wee-fi: urine-powered socks can send message in emergency

A new paper describing the technology was published this week in the journal Bioinspiration and Biomimetics.

The 24 individual soft MFCs inside the socks were supplied with fresh urine and circulated around by the human operator walking. Urine is pumped across the fuel cells by the walking motion of the wearer.

With just a wee bit of pee, scientists have discovered that urine placed in the socks that people wear can be used to generate electricity and power personal wireless transmitters, broadcasting messages every two minutes, according to an article in Tech Times, which puts pee to good use.

The authors say theirs is the first self-sufficient system powered by a wearable energy generator based on microbial fuel technology. When that happens, the cells then power a wireless transmitter that sends a signal to a nearby computer. The laboratory-based study was led by Professor Ioannis Ieropoulos, of the Bristol BioEnergy Center at the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol).

“Having already powered a mobile phone with MFCs using urine as fuel, we wanted to see if we could replicate this success in wearable technology”, he said. The technique involves a normally used electric pump to arrange the pressure to force the stored urine go through the fuel cell.

“There is a boom in wearable electronics, and the ability to make biological fuel cells that are flexible and wearable takes the application to the next level”, said University Technology Corporation researcher Heather Luckcraft, who was not involved in the study. The liquid is forced through microbial fuel cells containing bacteria when the person is walking. They tap into the biochemical energy used for microbial growth and convert it directly into electricity.

A prototype urinal is in development at the Center, in partnership with Oxfam that uses pee-power technology to light cubicles in refugee camps. The Microsoft founder’s charitable foundation part-funded the research. He added that other forms of organic waste have potential to be converted to electricity via MFC – believe it or not, that may include gear or clothing that may draw energy from your poop. Subsequently, scientists believe the technology to be a “valuable” one when it comes to green energy technology.

The electricity is a by-product of the microbes’ natural life cycle.