Activity: Writing
Objective: Promote literacy in content area (science)
Prompt: Urine as a renewable resource
Gleaming whte and cold to the touch, the standard-size toilet is anything but standard. Designed by Bruce Logan, an expert in energy generation for wastewater from Penn State, the Ureaka is a toilet that saves urines instead of flushing the yellow “waste” away. While normal toilets flush down, Ureaka flushes left or right depending on the business at hand: liquid to the left, solids to the right. Urine flushes counter-clockwise into a holding tank where it’s treated with chemichals that prevent nitrifying bacteria from decomposing urea into ammonia leaving hydrogen bonds–and the energy stored within them–intact. The household’s urea is collected at the end of the week and taken to Logan’s plant where it will be coverted to energy fuel.
