A one-piece jumpsuit containing a nappy/diaper consisting of hollow fibres, an expandable plastic liner and a supply of magnesium chloride. You put it on and on the need to urinate, you either aim the urine through the tube provided into a reservoir or simply wet yourself into the nappy. Capillary action in the nappy draws the fluid into the liner, which stores the urine. Over a period of several weeks, during which you _do_ shower from time to time to prevent nappy rash, the whole suit fills up with stale urine. Bear with me please.
As this process continues, the urea in the urine gradually converts to ammonia in solution. Meanwhile, it gradually filters through to a second chamber containing nigari - magnesium chloride. This converts the ammonia to struvite - ammonium magnesium phosphate. This is used to grow salad vegetables in transparent hydroponic chambers on the shoulders of the suit, and the remaining water is available for the wearer to drink.
That way, you'll never need to use the toilet for urination again, never need to get out of bed to pee again, the urine would warm your body rather than going to waste, the liquid performs a further insulating function as it sits there, you would get a renewable supply of drinking water and a steady supply of fresh, vitamin-filled vegetables for a healthy lifestyle. Install urine-powered batteries or a water wheel to generate power for lights to enable photosynthesis at night.-- nineteenthly, Sep 15 2008 http://asapblogs.ty...2007/06/12/peta.jpg Maybe start with a still suit bikini? [jutta, Sep 15 2008] Or a guitar jumpsuit? http://www.numberni...s/ronniewood_40.jpg [normzone, Sep 16 2008] This is disgusting and unrealistic considering the amount of water that most people drink and then pee, but I will bun if these are catalytic reactions and don't need resupplies of the chemicals because then it is just cool enough to override my gag reflex.
PS water even grey water is a bad insulator, or actually a good conductor, so that part is just inaccurate and I'm sure you know this so I'm confused as to why you included it.
Maybe you should have sold this as a dog peeing tree. As this could gather and use all the pee that my dogs now spread all over my back yard. And the underground reservoir would be easy to build and the solar cells to run it would also be simple add-on.-- MisterQED, Sep 15 2008 WTCTTISITMWIBNIIWR?-- phoenix, Sep 15 2008 Fear is the mind killer.-- Noexit, Sep 15 2008 //WTCTTISITMWIBNIIWR//I disagree - I don't remember seeing Sting growing lettuce leaves on his shoulders. [EDIT] I think I'm going to google that last sentence.-- coprocephalous, Sep 15 2008 [MisterQED], i'm not sure about the water but i do know it takes a lot of energy to change its temperature compared to a lot of other substances. Maybe that's not the same as insulation. You have to bear in mind that the urine is stored over a long period of time, and it builds up. Here we are:
Davidson's "Principles and Practice of Medicine", Churchill Livingstone, eighteenth edition, chapter eleven, section "Investigation of Renal Disease", subsection "Examination of the Urine" says "In health in temperate climates the 24-hour urine output usually varies from 800 to 2400 ml." Nearly a litre a day is not negligible, and that doesn't take sweat or insensible water loss into account.
I don't want this to be catalysed as that would introduce a weird chemical which is difficult to obtain and it happens on its own anyway. Please, take my word for it, i have taken this as far as producing the ammonia with vats of urine in practice, and plan to do the nigari stage soon. Nigari is widely available but my local Chinese supermarket is unfriendly to me, so i'm reluctant to go in there.
Concerning the WTCTTISITMWIBNIIWR, yes, i called it a "stillsuit" but an important part of this, as [coprocephalous] has kindly pointed out, is the nutritional side of it. Herbert seemed not to care about that side of it at all. At the very least you could grow water cress.-- nineteenthly, Sep 15 2008 So how long does the process take? My minor objection was that 1-2 liters a day is 1 to 2 kg per day and if this takes 2 weeks, you will be walking around with a very droopy diaper. Of this I have some experience due to my 14 month old daughter.
So how much magnesium chloride and nigari do you need per liter? And is there a way to reclaim it?
I'm interested in this more as a ISS water reclamation process than the still suit as I think this is going to be too heavy to move in.-- MisterQED, Sep 15 2008 The process takes quite a long time. The actual conversion to fertiliser is quick, but without a catalyst it takes a several weeks for urea to be largely converted to ammonia. Concerning droop, i envisaged the liquid as being stored all over the suit and not just in the groin area, so the whole garment gradually expands. I've neglected to provide a mechanism for distribution, so here it is: one's boots and the knees of the legs operate pistons which repeatedly squeeze the groin, pushing the fluid through valves into the body of the suit, which consists of regularly distributed chambers to spread the weight.
You would need seventy grammes of nigari per litre of urine.
Concerning weight, i'm a pretty weedy bloke and i can comfortably move twenty kilos around in a rucksack all day. That's an immediate increase in load when i put the rucksack on and it's around a quarter of my weight. This would be a gradual increase in load distributed widely over the body. I know someone the same height as me who weighs twice as much as i do and he can walk about without trouble. The weight gain is a maximum of two and a half kilos a day, and considering the exertion some fluid would be lost as sweat as the weight increases. This would provide exercise. I don't think the increase in load is a big problem.
[Jutta], thanks for the link. I know i've seen that picture before, but i can't remember why. It was in very unexpected and depressing circumstances, but i don't recall the details.-- nineteenthly, Sep 16 2008 At the rate of population expansion, the day is coming when this may be a necessity. Or it would do well for interplanetary travel or planetary colonization. That said however, gross.-- elhigh, Sep 24 2008 //Over a period of several weeks, during which you _do_ shower from time to time to prevent nappy rash, the whole suit fills up with stale urine.//
//At the very least you could grow water cress.//
The sentences that making this idea and its defense, when taken out of (and even in) context, are ubdoubtedly some of the best this site has seen in months.
This idea requires overengineering, a ridiculous lack of self-awareness, a huge capital outlay, an insane willingness to suspend all levels of otherwise positive social behavior, and urination into a diaper.
Five points for, none against. [+]-- shapu, Sep 24 2008 Thanks [shapu]. I do have plans, but they don't involve wearing my wizz. They do, however, involve buckets of the stuff standing around for several weeks before having nigari added to them, a fair number of free newspapers and some seeds. I could describe what my brother did with a tin opener, this valuable liquid and a large number of food cans which resulted in a medical emergency at this point, but i won't as it's a little gross. Unlike my plan to increase vitamin intake for free during a recession.-- nineteenthly, Sep 24 2008 random, halfbakery