A Solar Powered Crapper

[WhiteFeather]

Came across this article today whilst viewing some new technology sites. Though I'm not a fan of Bill Gates, I find this new technology in solar powered toiletry totally tantilizing in todays times. Take a gander!

Reinvent The Toilet Challenge!
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced the winners of its Reinvent the Toilet Challenge and the top prize went to a souped up, solar-powered model that produces hydrogen and fertilizer. If you’re thinking this sounds like another pricey high-tech green gadget for next-generation McMansions, think again: the aim of the challenge is to kickstart the development of low cost toilets for the 2.5 billion people worldwide who don’t have access to modern sanitary facilities.

Caltech Wins Toilet Challenge:

Caltech's solar-powered toilet has won the Reinventing the Toilet Challenge issued by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Caltech engineer Michael Hoffmann and his colleagues were awarded $100,000 for their design, which they demonstrated at the Reinvent the Toilet Fair, a two-day event held August 14–15 2012 in Seattle.

Last summer, Hoffmann, the James Irvine Professor of Environmental Science at Caltech, and his team were awarded a $400,000 grant to create a toilet that can safely dispose of human waste for just five cents per user per day. The lavatory can't use a septic system or an outside water source, or produce pollutants.

The challenge is part of a $40 million program initiated by the Gates Foundation to tackle the problems of water, sanitation, and hygiene throughout the developing world. According to the World Health Organization, 2.5 billion people around the globe are without access to sanitary toilets, which results in the spread of deadly diseases. Every year, 1.5 million people —mostly those under the age of five—die from diarrhea.

Hoffmann's proposal—which won one of the eight grants given—was to build a toilet that uses the sun to power an electrochemical reactor. The reactor breaks down water and human waste into fertilizer and hydrogen, which can be stored in hydrogen fuel cells as energy. The treated water can then be reused to flush the toilet or for irrigation.

The team built a prototype inside the solar dome on the roof of Caltech's Linde + Robinson Laboratory, and after a year of designing and testing, they—along with the other grantees—showed off their creation. The Gates Foundation brought in 50 gallons of fake feces made from soybeans and rice for the demonstrations.

The $60,000 second-place prize went to Loughborough University in the United Kingdom—whose toilet produces biological charcoal, minerals, and clean water —and the $40,000 third-place award went to the University of Toronto's design, which sanitizes feces and urine and recovers resources and clean water. Eawag (Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology) and EOOS won $40,000 as a special recognition for their toilet interface design.

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7PQMqGuWlU

http://features.caltech.edu/features/423
http://cleantechnica.com/2012/08/20/...eanTechnica%29


Marcus Woo

mwoo@caltech.edu

[Robert J. Niewiadomski]

Can it process toilet paper or will it promptly clogg itself? There is no word of toilet paper... I know, i know civilized people use running water, soap and towel after they are done. Only savages use toilet paper Would you use specially cultivated pitcher plant, the size of a bucket or larger, as toilet?
Any way if it does away without septic tanks, running water and works off-grid, it is worth something

[WhiteFeather]

Posted by Robert J. Niewiadomski (here)
Can it process toilet paper or will it promptly clogg itself? There is no word of toilet paper... I know, i know civilized people use running water, soap and towel after they are done. Only savages use toilet paper Would you use specially cultivated pitcher plant, the size of a bucket or larger, as toilet?
Any way if it does away without septic tanks, running water and works off-grid, it is worth something

Good Point Indeed!

[rmauersr]

Here's a low cost alternative used worldwide for years.


The Simple, Low Cost Humanure Sawdust Toilet:

• Build your own.
• Instruction Manual
• Sanitation by composting
• Humanure Handbook. Free. Available in 7 languages. Author Joseph Jenkins.

The “$25 (or less) Hinged-Top Humanure Toilet” used all over the world. This system has three necessary components: the sawdust toilet, cover material (peat moss, sawdust, etc.) and the compost bins. Two compost bins are needed because composted waste must sit for at least one year without fresh manure being added before it is safe to use on your garden. If the compost pile is too small to get hot then wait two years. The entire award winning Humanure Handbook is available as free download online. Hard copies can also be purchased in several languages. No one should be without an inexpensive simple composting Sawdust toilet during periods when potable water is scarce.


Compost temperature is important. In chapter “Monitoring Compost Temperature” of the Humanure Handbook it is said that a temperature of 120 degrees F for a few hours would eliminate pathogenic organisms completely.


One user of a sawdust toilet reported that he had found a way to bypass the need to construct and maintain the composting bin specified by Jenkins. Instead, black trash bags intended for use in a trash compactor (much tougher than garbage bags) were used as a bucket liner. When full, the black bags were removed and put in a sunny spot next to the garden. After an unspecified length of time the contents were completely decomposed and the finished product was without odor. Once the compost had cooked the trash compactor bags could be emptied in the garden and recycled as a fresh liner in the collection container.