PUNE: Anticipating future needs, Indian Institute of Science, Education and Research (IISER) Scientist Muhammed Musthafa, for the first time, made multiple use of cow urine, which is found abundantly in rural areas. With the help of cow urine, he not only generated electricity, but also created hydrogen fuel for electric vehicles besides using it as a fertiliser.
His one minute presentation before Prime Minister Narendra Modi brought him appreciation. Within a month of the presentation, he was visited at his laboratory by Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Monday.
Speaking exclusively with Sakal Times, he said he made the one-minute presentation before Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to IISER in December 2019.
“The PM was impressed with the project and told me to continue working on it. On Monday, I received a call from the office of Pune District Collector saying that Union Minister Nitin Gadkari is going to visit my lab,” said Musthafa. “I was surprised that within a month’s time Gadkari came for the follow-up. I made a laboratory demonstrations before Gadkari, who was there for nearly an hour,” Musthafa said.
“I demonstrated how with this battery a big table fan and a table lamp can be operated. It needed seven to eight batteries to run the table fan for two hours. It had a voltage of 11.5 Volts,” he explained.
Recalling the background, he said, “I initiated this project two years ago. Earlier, we worked on human urine but found that cow urine performed better. We are investigating why cow urine has better performance. A large population lives in rural areas and almost every household owns a cow. We know how to use the waste of the cow, but still it is not utilised completely. Thus, the idea of making these kind of batteries struck me and thus started the research,” he said. For the first time such multipurpose use of cow urine has been seen.
Originally from Kerala, Musthafa has been working at IISER, Pune since August 2014. He did his doctoral research at IISC Bangalore before going for further research to Scotland, UK.
