November 07, 2013 08:48pm ETYour Pee Could Power Future Robots Researchers have found a way to turn urine into electric power that could drive a robot.

There's a new use for artificial hearts, and it involves a more taboo bodily fluid than blood.

A device that mimics the squeezing action of the human heart has been used to pump urine into a microbial fuel cell, which could power robots that convert the waste into electricity.

"In the future, we hope the robots might be used in city environments for remote sensing," where they could help to monitor pollution, said study researcher Peter Walters, an industrial designer at the University of the West of England. "It could refuel from public lavatories, or urinals, " Walters said.

Walters and colleagues at the University of Bristol have created four generations of these so-called EcoBots over the past decade. Previous versions of the robots ran off energy from rotten produce, dead flies, wastewater and sludge. [Super-Intelligent Machines: 7 Robotic Futures]

Each is powered by a microbial fuel cell, containing live microorganisms like those found in the human gut or sewage treatment plants. The microbes digest the waste (or urine) and produce electrons, which can be harvested to produce electrical current, Walters said.

The researchers have already proved the microbial fuel cells can use urine power to charge a mobile phone.

Now, the team has developed a device, made of artificial muscles, that delivers real human urine to the robot's microbial power stations. The pump is constructed from smart materials, called shape memory alloys, which remember their shape after being deformed.

Heating the artificial muscles with an electric current causes them to compress the soft center of the pump, forcing urine through an outlet that pumps it up to the height of the robot's fuel cells. Removing the heat allows the muscles to revert to their original shape, allowing more fluid to enter the pump — much as a heart relaxes to suck in more blood.

Twenty-four of these fuel cells stacked together were able to produce enough electricity to charge a capacitor, which was used to trigger contractions of the artificial heart pump, the researchers report today (Nov. 8) in the journal Bioinspiration and Biomimetics.

Whereas conventional motor-powered pumps tend to get clogged, the artificial muscle pump has larger internal orifices, Walters said.

While the new pump does produce more electricity than it consumes (since some of the electricity comes from urine that's converted to electrons), it's still not extremely efficient. The researchers hope to improve the pump's efficiency for use in future generations of the EcoBot.

小便将来能为机器人供电

Your小便能电力未来Robots 的研究人员已经找到一种方法把尿成电能，可以驱动机器人。

有人造心脏的新用途，它涉及比血液更忌讳体液.

模仿人类心脏的挤压动作的设备已被用于抽尿成微生物燃料电池，它可以提供动力的机器人，可将废物转化为电能.

u0026 QUOT;在未来，我们希望机器人可以在城市环境遥感，＆QUOT使用;在那里他们可以帮助监测污染，该研究的研究人员彼得·沃尔特斯，工业设计师，在英格兰西部大学。 ＆QUOT;它可以加油的公共厕所，或尿厕，＆QUOT;沃尔特斯说.

沃尔特斯和布里斯托尔大学的同事们在过去十年中创造了四代这些所谓EcoBots的。以前版本的机器人跑了能量腐烂的农产品，死苍蝇，污水和污泥。 [超级智能机：7机器人期货Super-Intelligent Machines: 7 Robotic Futures微生物消化废物（或尿），并产生电子，这可收获，以产生电流，沃尔特说.

研究人员已经证明了微生物燃料电池可使用尿功率到移动电话充电.

现在，该小组已开发出一种装置，制成人造肌肉，能够提供真正的人体尿液对机器人的微生物发电站。该泵从智能材料构造，被称为形状记忆合金，在变形之后记住它们的形状.

加热该人造肌肉与电流使它们压缩泵的软中心，迫使尿通过泵它的出口到机器人的燃料电池的高度。除去热使肌??肉恢复到原来的形状，从而使更多的流体进入泵＆mdash;就像一个心脏放松在更多的血液吸.

二十四这些燃料电池堆叠在一起的能够产生足够的电力的电容器，将其用于触发人工心脏泵的收缩充电，研究人员报告今日（ 11月8日）在杂志Bioinspiration和仿生学.

鉴于传统的电机驱动的泵往往堵塞，人造肌肉泵具有较大的内孔，沃尔特斯说.

虽然新的水泵确实能产生更多的电力消耗比（因为一些电力来自尿液会转换为电子），它仍然不是非常有效的。研究人员希望提??高泵的效率，为后代EcoBot .