Four Nigerian teenage girls create urine-powered generator in Lagos

With the intermittent scarcity of petrol and the ongoing national debate on whether or not to scrap the subsidy on petroleum products, which will see a further hike in price of the products, this news will come as a relief to many, especially in Nigeria.

According to a report on RisingAfrica.org, four teenage girls figured out a way to use a liter of urine as fuel to get six hours of electricity from their generator.

Fourteen-year-olds Duro-Aina Adebola, Akindele Abiola, and Faleke Oluwatoyin, and 15-year-old Bello Eniola displayed their invention this week at Maker Faire Africa in Lagos, Nigeria, an annual event meant to showcase ingenuity.

Below is how the urine-powered generator works:

• Urine is put into an electrolytic cell, which separates out the hydrogen.

• The hydrogen goes into a water filter for purification, and then into a gas cylinder, which looks similar to the kind used for outdoor barbecue grills.

• The gas cylinder pushes the filtered hydrogen into another cylinder that contains liquid borax, in order to remove moisture from the gas. Borax is a natural mineral, commonly used in laundry detergent.

• The hydrogen is pushed into a power generator in the final step of the process.

A big drawback is that hydrogen poses an explosion risk. But the girls used one-way valves throughout the device as a safety measure.

Watch the Video demonstration