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Pee contains some pretty amazing stuff. Scientists have known for nearly a decade that bricks can be made from bacteria, sand and urea, a chemical found in the urine. The researchers went ahead and produced these bricks, for the first time with human pee.
South African engineer Dyllon Randall of the University of Cape Town, who calls the urine "liquid gold wastewater" because of its chemical content, has studied various uses of pee and its components. A graduate student in her laboratory, Suzanne Lambert, unveiled bricks as strong as clay bricks, produced with human pee in a process called "microbial carbonate precipitation". They start with sand-containing bacteria that produce an enzyme called urase. The urease eats urea in the pee and produces calcium carbonate, by sticking the sand in place.
But why pee bricks? According to the University of Cape Town press release, they are better for the environment because they can be formed at room temperature. On the other hand, baked bricks must be heated to 1400 degrees Celsius and produce a lot of carbon dioxide. Plus, it's probably a better use of your pee than what you are currently doing with it.
We discussed with Lambert what pee making is.
Gizmodo: Where did you get this idea?
Suzanne Lambert: My supervisor found it while he was looking for how to make fertilizer from urine … But he discovered that urea did not hydrolyze [breaking down with the help of water]. He was researching what to do with urea and had founded a company that used synthetic urea to produce bricks. So, why not use urea in the urine to do the same thing?
G: How do you collect urine?
SL: There is a bathroom for boys in front of the laboratory. We have a makeshift urinal, a can with a urinal fixture above. You can detach the urinal to store urine. I just asked the boys at the university to kindly donate me.
G: And what is the texture of the bricks? Are they as strong as normal bricks?
SL: The texture is similar to normal bricks. They are a little gray. And they are as strong as bricks. The last test I did, I brought them to 2.5 megapascals. An undergraduate student did some tests and he had one up to 5 megapascals. a clay brick can support about 3 megapascals. It's pretty good.[[[[Author's Note: A military submarine should withstand 5 megapascals at depths of 500 meters.]
G: How is it so solid?
SL: The idea mimics something that happens in nature. Let's see how the coral is formed. Coral has bacteria on it. Bacteria produce an enzyme that reacts to produce calcium carbonate. I grow bacteria and put them in a mixture of sand, then the bacteria colonize there when you pump the urine. The bacterium produces an enzyme that converts urea to carbonate and ammonia.
G: Do people think it's weird?
SL: Some people do it. Most people are just interested. You can change the waste concept of the population and how we reuse our waste that would otherwise be incinerated in a wastewater treatment plant. It's awesome.
G: Do you think people will buy that? How do you intend to change their perceptions?
SL: First, this kind of thing needs to give people an idea and show them that the bricks do not smell. It's an interesting process, and there are many other applications of these bacteria. This could be cheaper than most current methods. Hope that the need will provide the change. It may take a little while before it can be applied in our real world, but it's not that far. Maybe he can absorb part of the market. I am not sure. You can only hope.
[University of Cape Town]