A team of researchers at the University of the West of England in Bristol, United Kingdom, has recently developed a novel power generating system that uses your urine to produce electricity.

According to its makers, the new pair of extraordinary socks can store up to 648 milliliters of urine, i.e. almost 22 ounces. This urine is stored in the socks using integrated tubes, said researchers.

Explaining the working of the socks, researchers said when the user walks, the liquid is forced through microbial fuel cells that contain bacteria. These bacteria consume the nutrients in urine and thus create electricity during this process.

The researchers, during the experiment, were able to use the socks to power a wireless transmitter, which broadcasted messages every two minutes.

The technique involves using an electric pump to provide the pressure to force the urine through the fuel cell, making the process pretty inefficient. When the user’s foot creates pressure, electricity only gets produced, but not used.

Although the use of urine itself is an entirely new thing, the team is avoiding the use of series of tubes and instead is planning to use clothing that already has urine incorporated so that people don't have to worry about handling urine themselves.

The study researchers said the thing that inspired them to attempt this is a closed fish circulatory system known as single cycle circulation. The team’s findings were published in Bioinspiration and Biometrics.

Socks at present are not ready for consumers. Heather Luckarift, a researcher at Universal Technology Corporation in Ohio, told New Scientist that so far it is not clear how you would get the urine directly into this system and how a user will pee into its socks.