Over the last two days, Lagos, Nigeria has hosted Maker Faire Africa, the Maker movement’s bastion on that continent. One of the most impressive and surprising devices displayed there is a device that uses a material we all have ready access to in order to power an engine. That’s right: four girls, aged 13 and 14, have created a prototype generator that runs on urine.
For one liter of urine (about half what a person produces in a day), the generator will six hours of electricity. The process works by separating the hydrogen out of the urine, and then using it to power the generator.