Blog: Self-Sustaining Robot Has an Artificial Gut

Self-Sustaining Robot Has an Artificial Gut
PhysOrg.com (07/20/10)

British researchers have developed an autonomous robot with an artificial stomach that enables it to fuel itself by eating and excreting. Bristol Robotics Laboratory researchers designed the robot, called Ecobot III, so that it consumes partially processed sewage, using the nutrients within the mixture for fuel and excreting the remains. The robot also drinks water to maintain power generation. The meal is processed by 24 microbial fuel cells (MFCs), which are held in a stack of two tiers in the robot's body. Undigested matter passes via a gravity feed to a central trough from which it is pumped back into the feeder tanks to be reprocessed in order to extract as much of the available energy as possible. The bacteria in the MFCs metabolize the organic mixture, producing hydrogen atoms in the process, which help produce an electric current. The robot has maintained itself unaided for up to seven days, but is so far extremely inefficient, using only one percent of the energy available within the food.

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