Enhanced Urine Powered Battery (EUPB) for low power applications

In this paper, the enhanced urine powered battery(EUPB) has been designed and proposed for low power applications. In EUPB, the human urine has been utilised as a source of energy extraction. The natural neat human urine along with mould HYPHAE (fungus) has been used as an electrolyte in the design. The proposed EUPB consists of hybrid(series and parallel) combination of small single chamber urine powered cells. In urine powered cells, the electrodes have been dipped in electrolyte and the potential across the electrodes has been measured. In EUPB design, the objective is to increase the electrical output of Urine Powered Battery by adding a suitable microbe to the urine which has been employed as anelectrolyte in the system. It has been concluded that the best combination of electrode materials (cathode-anode) is Cu-Al which when used with amalgamation of urine and mould Hyphae leads to increased electrical output voltage and current. The mould driven single urine powered cell (UPC) is capable of generating voltage and current of 0.56V and 0.3mA. The EUPB comprising of 20 UPC's which has been proposed iscapable of generating voltage of 5.06V and current of 0.44mA for 120 hours and can be employed for low power applications.