The New Petrol: Nigerian Secondary School Girls Invent Urine-Powered Generator
A generator that can generate six hours of electricity from one liter of urine was created by four adolescent girls in Nigeria.
The innovation was on show by the girls, Duro-Aina Adebola, Akindele Abiola, Faleke Oluwatoyin, and Bello Eniola, during the yearly Maker Faire Africa in Lagos.
The ladies said that although the concept of utilizing pee as fuel was not new, Adeola, Abiola, Oluwatoyin, and Eniola came up with a workable solution that many houses could employ.
This was revealed by RusselSmith, a well-known supplier of Integrated Energy Solutions. Adebola, a 14-year-old, added that she got the idea to use urine to make power after reading about a family of five who perished.
She said that while they were sleeping, the family members breathed in fumes from their generator, which caused them to get poisoned with carbon monoxide and die.
She expressed concern about the occurrence and considered ways to help stop it from happening again, coming to the conclusion that the best course of action was to switch to a power source that doesn’t emit carbon monoxide.
Adebola said that she discussed the idea with her three pals, Eniola, a fifteen-year-old, and Oluwatoyin, who is also fourteen.
The four friends took on the name “Fantastic Four” and set out to find a solution, which eventually proved to be effective and well-recognized.
The Fantastic Four said that after discussing their hypothesis with Olaide Lawal, their physics instructor, they received encouragement that the signal may be real.
Inspired by this, the teenage females started experimenting with potential energy-producing elements other than carbon. They claimed to have realized that hydrogen powers rocket engines.
The girls explained that the idea behind their innovation was that water would be the final output if hydrogen served as the generator’s raw material. The group said that they ran into trouble after experimenting with water.
The researchers said they concluded that electrolyzing water would result in a 1.25-volt loss every cycle due to the minimal hydrogen production in water.
Adebola claimed to have advised the group to test a free substance that can provide the energy required to power household appliances. At this time, the team started to think about utilizing pee as a raw material source.
According to Adebola, their first device was based around an electrolytic cell made out of an old vehicle battery. In addition, the system had pipelines, filters, and an empty gas storage tank.
The girls claimed, “We then carried out our first experiment and reconfigured our petrol-based generator, and then we faced another huge challenge as the cell exploded.”
“We continued to examine our procedure and configuration until Mr Lawal identified our mistake: the mixture of hydrogen and oxygen gas was going back into the cell. To guarantee a one-directional flow of the gas mixture, we subsequently installed one-way valves into the pipes, and it was successful, they said.
The Fantastic Four said that when people saw their creation in public for the first time, they lost optimism that it would succeed. Nevertheless, they persisted and made adjustments. When they displayed their innovation at the Maker Faire Africa in 2012 once more, they attracted national notice.
The Fantastic Four have won national and worldwide recognition for their urine-powered generators since the presentation. The Lagos State government has stated that it would want to provide funding for the invention’s large-scale development so that houses may utilize it.
The teenage ladies thanked Doregos Private Academy, their school, for providing the funds, the means of transportation, and the moral support that allowed them to follow their dreams.
