The Bristol BioEnergy Centre (BBiC) at UWE has been developing a microbial fuel cell (MFC) technology to produce electricity from urine and wastewater, in a single step conversion, by reducing Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD) or Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) as well as pathogens. The MFC is an energy transducer converting the biochemical energy in organic waste (wastewater, blackwater, urine) directly into electricity, through the metabolic activity of constituent microorganisms. A single MFC generates approximately 1mW of power at al, on the UWE Campus for more than a year; which has served as a proof-of concept. Scaled-up Pee Power urinals were then successfully installed and operated during the Glastonbury Music Festival of 2015 and 2016 with 1000’s of people using them per day.

These small scale trials are very encouraging but fall short of demonstrating at scale the real world practical use of “Pee power” and MFCs. This proposal requests funding to continue the collaboration between UWE-BBiC and Oxfam to further refine the MFC technology and production cost and then demonstrate its potential by extending and expanding the field trials to developing world contexts of an urban slum and refugee camp. The project seeks to demonstrate the practical use of the technology by addressing major problems being faced by the poorest and most marginalized people in the world related to sanitation, safety and protection. Integrating MFCs into a urine diversion toilet not only utilizes a waste product that has no productive purpose, the by-product is also less harmful and has less odor that the original urine.

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Renewable energies and climate changeEmergency and reconstructionProduct design and engineeringGlobalResource recovery Fundamental research and engineeringBill & Melinda Gates FoundationUrineCamps (emergency or longer term)Energy: electricity, hydrogen, fuel cellsInternational NGO

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