Garardine Botte, scientist at Ohio University, has developed a catalyst capable of extracting hydrogen from urine, and she says the discovery could soon be used to power automobiles. "I believe we could have pee-powered cars capable of 60 miles per gallon on the road within a year."

The device uses significantly less energy than is needed to extract hydrogen from water and says it could power hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in the near future. Her electrolyzer uses a nickel-based electrode to extract hydrogen from urea (NH2)2CO, the main component in urine. Hydrogen is less tightly bound to the nitrogen in urea than to the oxygen in water, so the electrolyzer needs just 0.37 volts across the cell to oxidize the urea, according to Botte. That’s less than half the amount of energy in an AA battery and considerably less than the 1.23 volts needed to split water.

One of hydrogen’s biggest stumbling blocks to use as an alternative fuel is the amount of energy needed to produce it. And then there’s the matter of distributing it. Botte says her gadget eliminates such problems because it’s small enough to integrate into an automobile. Urine is also readily available — your body produces two to three liters of it each day, and it is the most abundant form of waste on the planet. We could treat waste water while fueling our cars.

Botte’s current electrolyzer prototype is about the size of a pair of CD jewel cases and can produce up to 500 milliwatts of power. That’s pretty small, but Ohio University has patented the technology and Botte says it could be scaled up to power hybrid and electric vehicles or anything else running on electricity.

This could negate several major road-trip deterrents in one fell swoop.

Via wired.com.