Finally!

The Budweiser brewery (aka: The Devil’s Own Kidney Machine) stands to possibly become useful for something other than making shitty rice beer.

You do two things at motorway services: fill up one tank and empty another. US chemists have combined refuelling your car and relieving yourself by creating a new catalyst that can extract hydrogen from urine.

Chemistry World reports that the catalyst could not only fuel the hydrogen-powered cars of the future, but could also help clean up municipal wastewater.

Gerardine Botte of Ohio University uses an electrolytic approach to produce hydrogen from urine – the most abundant waste on Earth – at a fraction of the cost of producing hydrogen from water.

Urine’s major constituent is urea, which incorporates four hydrogen atoms per molecule – importantly, less tightly bonded than the hydrogen atoms in water.

Botte uses electrolysis to break the molecule apart, developing an inexpensive new nickel-based electrode to selectively and efficiently oxidise the urea. To break the molecule down, a voltage of 0.37V needs to be applied across the cell – much less than the 1.23V needed to split water.

So now, getting home after a hard days work and knocking back a few will not only help you sleep better, you’ll be filling your car up for the commute the next day.

I predict much happiness (sorry, diabetics, you’re still stuck with apple juice).

Found via Robb