Creating renewable resources for developing countries

Two St Bricin's College students have created a project aimed at harnessing microbial fuel cells as a renewable resource for developing countries.

Speaking at the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition, Aine McGovern and Alicia Czop said their project ‘Waste to Watts’ aims to investigate microbial fuel cells, little cells which use microorganisms within food scraps, urine and faeces, to generate a small amount of electricity.

“Our project is about using and implementing microbial fuel cells within developing countries which do not have as much electricity or correct sanitation,” said Aine.

Alicia explained how this can work.

“The structure consists of an anaerobic anode chamber and an aerobic cathode chamber, they are both separated by a semi-permeable membrane, the electrodes flow from the anode to the cathode chamber while the protons flow throughout the membrane into the cathode.”

“Glucose and oxygen give the alcodes a little bit of CO2, it can filter water and generate electricity.”

They used artificial faeces and urine to conduct their experiment and tested the urine to faeces ratios. They found that faeces had a positive correlation with voltage output, meanwhile urine had a negative correlation with voltage output.

“The water filtration is very good for Africa which is our main focus,” said Aine.

“We believe with the right time, effort and determination that this can really help people in Africa as they deserve electricity and basic sanitation just as much as we do.”

“We thought about Africa, how they have all these open pits and waste is very abundant there so we could use that to our benefit and help with waste water and also electricity for them.”