Toilet that turns excrement into power and digital currency

Cho Jae-weon, an urban and environmental engineering professor at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) in South Korea, has designed an eco-friendly toilet connected to a laboratory that uses excrement to produce biogas and manure.

It has been named, BeeVi toilet. It uses a vacuum pump to send feces into an underground tank, reducing water use.

Microorganisms break down the waste to methane, which becomes a source of energy for the building, powering a gas stove, hot-water boiler, and solid oxide fuel cell.

Cho said, “If we think out of the box, feces has precious value to make energy and manure. I have put this value into ecological circulation,” further added that the average person defecates about 500g a day, which can be converted to 50 liters of methane gas.

This gas can generate 0.5kWh of electricity or be used to drive a car for about 1.2km.

Reuters reported that Cho has devised a virtual currency called Ggool, which means honey in Korean. A person using the eco-friendly toilet earns 10 Ggool a day. This currency can be used by students to buy goods on campus, from freshly brewed coffee to instant cup noodles, fruits, and books. The students can pick up the products they want at a shop and scan a QR code to pay with Ggool.