CU Boulder Team Receives Grant Toward Sustainability

Update 2025

The grant to the University of Colorado Boulder for $780,000 grant explored technology that turns fecal matter into biochar using a creative way of generating heat by focusing a mirror on the end of fiber optic cables.

Learn about the technology and company that grew from this grant, what they are doing today, and see pictures of their technology here: https://modernfarmer.com/2014/05/solar-power-toilet-lifeline-rural-farmers/

Updated 1/30/2020

Who would have expected a toilet to one-day filter water, charge a cellphone or create charcoal to combat climate change? Well, did you know that in 2012, a team of students and faculty engineers from the University of Colorado Boulder won a grant for nearly $780,000 for its proposal to develop a solar-biochar toilet for use in developing countries throughout the world? It’s true!

The grant was part of the Reinvent the Toilet Challenge initiated by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to address a sanitation challenge affecting nearly 40 percent of the world’s population. The primary goals: to sanitize waste, use minimal water or electricity, and produce a usable product at low cost.

Congratulations CU Boulder on another big step toward sustainability!