Now instead of just shitting bricks, you can piss bricks.
Seriously though, I wish the article had more information about material strength, time and cost. Eco-centric tech like this is great in my opinion, but is it something that's actually practical?
In the article they referenced if you want a brick stronger then a 40% limestone brick you just have to let these bricks grow a little longer. So they can be at least as strong as a limestone brick if that is any sort of reference.
Time-lapsed video of what this looks like once it's in the mold would be interesting. Some more technical specs about the time involved and volume of materials would be interesting as well. Maybe there will be a follow up article?
The byproduct of this reaction is a unit ammonia for each unit of urea used. Is large amounts of ammonia easier to dispose of than urea?
"When urea is hydrolysed by the urease enzyme from the microorganism, ammonia is released and becomes accumulated in the medium which then increases the pH, making it alkaline (Zoheir et al 2013)
The decomposition of urea [(NH2)2CO] produces two equivalents of ammonia for each equivalent of urea. It's not clear from the article how much (if any) of the ammonia gets consumed by the bacteria.
> Is large amounts of ammonia easier to dispose of than urea?
Ammonia's boiling point is -33 C, so pure urea is a gas a room temperature.
When dissolved in water, ammonia is in equilibrium with ammonium hydroxide. So the stuff can stick around until consumed by microorganism or it evaporates.
Could they embed urine powered batteries (https://newatlas.com/urine-battery/42866/, and many others) in the urine brick? These could bricks be part of a "smart" home/building, where every brick reports in as to its current condition, strength and mood!
Using liquid gold as a resource to extract valuable phosphates is a long-time practice. For instance in 2013 the Amsterdam sewage treatment plant started a large-scale installation to process urine.
It seems like it would take a very long time for a small number of residents to produce enough bricks to build anything via this method. Then again, it could still be more practical than utilizing local materials, particularly in the very early stages of colonization.
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[ 0.27 ms ] story [ 49.1 ms ] threadSeriously though, I wish the article had more information about material strength, time and cost. Eco-centric tech like this is great in my opinion, but is it something that's actually practical?
A kiln fired brick is a 5 to 7 depending on its constituent parts.
"When urea is hydrolysed by the urease enzyme from the microorganism, ammonia is released and becomes accumulated in the medium which then increases the pH, making it alkaline (Zoheir et al 2013)
(PDF) Integrating Biotechnology into Geotechnical Engineering: A Laboratory Exercise. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326113096_Integrati... [accessed Oct 25 2018]."
> Is large amounts of ammonia easier to dispose of than urea?
Ammonia's boiling point is -33 C, so pure urea is a gas a room temperature.
When dissolved in water, ammonia is in equilibrium with ammonium hydroxide. So the stuff can stick around until consumed by microorganism or it evaporates.
Both urea and ammonia can be used as fertilizers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urea
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiJ9fy1qSFI
Maybe there are even earlier ones, but this is from 2010: https://www.treehugger.com/green-architecture/architect-grow...
Edit: Ahh, I guess the nuance is that the first effort used extracted urea versus actually using urine.
Here are some ins and outs on the hows and whys:
https://www.earthmagazine.org/article/p-phosphate-could-urin...