{"id":6554,"date":"2016-03-15T07:08:35","date_gmt":"2016-03-14T21:08:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.privatefleet.com.au\/?p=6554"},"modified":"2020-06-20T00:56:48","modified_gmt":"2020-06-19T14:56:48","slug":"pee-power-its-no-joke-no-honestly-we-really-mean-it-this-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/fuel-2\/pee-power-its-no-joke-no-honestly-we-really-mean-it-this-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Pee Power: It\u2019s No Joke (No, Honestly; We Really Mean It This Time)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"fuelcell\"<\/a>Quite a few years ago, when this blog site was just starting out, we published an April Fool\u2019s day article that claimed that scientists had worked out how to run a car engine on pee.\u00a0 We intended this as a joke but it looks as though the last laugh\u2019s on us.\u00a0 There really is a way to run a vehicle on urine.<\/p>\n

This is not to say that the white-coated ones have come up with a system by which you refuel your vehicle by taking a very, very large drink of water then\u2026 well, use your imagination! Instead, it\u2019s a system where hydrogen is extracted from urine and is then used in hydrogen fuel cells to power a vehicle.<\/p>\n

In fact, according to Gerardine Botte of Ohio University, who developed the process of getting hydrogen out of urine in 2009, it\u2019s easier to get the hydrogen out of wee than out of water. In urea (one of the compounds of urine), there\u2019s four hydrogen atoms per molecule rather than two, and they\u2019re not holding chemical hands as tightly, so they\u2019re easy to split off with a cheap little nickel-based electrode that uses 0.37 V to grab the hydrogen rather than the 1.23 V needed to split water up into H2<\/sub> and O.<\/p>\n

This is very good news for the sustainable fuel world. Hydrogen fuel cells are the next big thing. In fact, Toyota <\/a>, the people who really popularised the hybrid electric vehicle with the ground-breaking Prius <\/a>are set to launch the world\u2019s first mass-produced fuel cell vehicle, known as the Mirai (which has already been released in Japan and California).<\/p>\n

So how does hydrogen fuel cell technology work?<\/p>\n

A fuel cell is kind of like a battery in that it produces an electrical current that can then be used to power a motor. However, unlike a battery, it needs to be supplied non-stop with fuel, which is usually hydrogen and water. There are several different types of fuel cell out there but in general, what happens is this:<\/p>\n