from the helping-your-local-pub-or-bar-build-their-business dept.
The world's first bio-brick grown from human urine has been unveiled by University of Cape Town (UCT) master's student in civil engineering Suzanne Lambert, signalling an innovative paradigm shift in waste recovery.
The bio-bricks are created through a natural process called microbial carbonate precipitation. It's not unlike the way seashells are formed, said Lambert's supervisor Dr. Dyllon Randall, a senior lecturer in water quality engineering.
In this case, loose sand is colonised with bacteria that produce urease. An enzyme, the urease breaks down the urea in urine while producing calcium carbonate through a complex chemical reaction. This cements the sand into any shape, whether it's a solid column, or now, for the first time, a rectangular building brick.
If you're been looking for more uses for pee, you're in luck.
Related Stories
Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
A common chemical found in urine can be used to kick-start large-scale production of proteins such as hormones and antibodies used by biotech companies.
Researchers at the University of Birmingham and Aston University, in the U.K., have developed a system that uses urea to trigger the production of these proteins in the large quantities needed by the biotech industry.
Typically, in this process, small pieces of DNA are introduced into bacteria such as E.coli to persuade them to overproduce certain proteins. It is a well-understood technology that was first developed in the 1970s. Overproduction, however, is typically triggered by "inducer" molecules, which can be costly, and often need careful handling, such as refrigeration.
By using urea instead, the researchers have developed a method that is cheaper, more straightforward, and uses easily accessible materials.
[...] The study builds on earlier work in which the team successfully demonstrated that nitrate, a cheap, stable and abundant inorganic ion, could also be used as a trigger. Nitrate is commonly found in many commercial fertilizers and even in some garden fertilizers, meaning that it is always readily available, even in areas where other types of promoter chemicals might be inaccessible.
Co-author Dr. Joanne Hothersall, also in the School of Biosciences, added, "Both urea and nitrate will be much more readily available, and easy to use, in locations where infrastructure limits access, for example where maintaining a cold supply chain is challenging. We hope these new approaches will open up new avenues of research for biotech industries."
A versatile substance indeed:
Should We be Trying to Create a Circular Urine Economy?
In Space, Pee Is for Power
World's First Biobricks Grown from Human Urine
Testing the Use of Human Urine as a Natural Fertilizer for Crops
Geopolymer Concrete: Building Moon Bases with Astronaut Urine and Regolith
Journal Reference:
Joanne Hothersall, Alexander Osgerby, Rita E. Godfrey, et al. New vectors for urea-inducible recombinant protein production, New Biotechnology (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.nbt.2022.10.003
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 27 2018, @12:49AM
The Golden One
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Saturday October 27 2018, @01:03AM (1 child)
does it work with cat wee [soylentnews.org]?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2, Funny) by Acabatag on Saturday October 27 2018, @03:20AM
I am looking for some way to capitalize on large amounts of cat shit. With five cats in our house, I could be rich.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday October 27 2018, @01:09AM (2 children)
Replace that loose sand with ground up kidney stones and it will be a true bio-brick.
I sense there just has to be a market segment for "organic free range houses"
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 27 2018, @01:12AM (1 child)
I was thinking more in terms of a community barn raising -- y'all are invited to my beer blast but I need to save your piss to make the barn foundation material.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 27 2018, @02:13AM
Try to get Budweiser to sponsor it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Saturday October 27 2018, @01:10AM
Pee colony
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Saturday October 27 2018, @01:12AM
A house built out of pee in that 3-4 weeks of San Diego summers where it's over 100 degrees for 3 weeks in a row.
/ bad enough keeping the cat litter box clean then
// come home from my aerobics class and "Damn cat, you took a piss didn't you!"
/// this isn't fark, three slashies isn't a requirement
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday October 27 2018, @01:54AM
Though, I always heard the expression was "to shit bricks," not piss them.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Saturday October 27 2018, @04:15AM (1 child)
The house that Budweiser built
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday October 27 2018, @05:31AM
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https://www.anheuser-busch.com/newsroom/2017/11/budweiser-takes-next-step-to-be-the-first-beer-on-mars.html&strip=1&vwsrc=0 [googleusercontent.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 27 2018, @08:35AM
I used to make adobe bricks and we would pee in them
More modern study of this
http://www.aun.edu.eg/journal_files/85_J_8907.pdf [aun.edu.eg]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Kent_Diego on Saturday October 27 2018, @10:43PM
Regular bricks are made from clay. You dig it from the ground with an excavator at 1 ton per scoop. A house made from recovered waste bricks would cost tens of thousands more than a clay brick. Clay bricks are attractive and last hundreds of years. It would be cheaper just to dump the human waste into the hole you dug excavating the clay.