It is no coincidence that human excrement is often referred to as "waste" and "excrement". Except for the adventurous few who purify and drink their own urine, since the dawn of time no one has been able to advantageously reuse the waste materials of our body.
A group of researchers from Nanyang University in Singapore have created a toilet that turns our feces into biogas and biodiesel.
No-Mix Toilet, this is the name of the device, it adopts the same 'suction' technology that we find in aircraft toilets to separate the liquid and solid part of the faeces: the first is transformed into biogas, the second into fertilizer. It goes without saying that the contribution in energy terms would be incredible, given the amount of 'participation' that human beings are able to offer on a daily basis.
Is it conceivable a future in which trains and planes will be (partially, of course) powered through their own bathrooms?
We look forward to the developments of the research and do not forget, when we read something in the bathroom, that we are literally sitting on a gold mine.