The Science of Fermented Urine

Perhaps the reader has smelled a rotten egg or rotting meat. Now imagine (if you care to) the aroma of fermented urine. Don't go there, you say? Yet, fermented urine once played a pivotal role in science. The year is approximately 1669; the scientist is from Hamburg, Germany--Henning Brand. In search of a route to gold, alchemist Brand places the residues derived from 60 buckets of human urine (putrefied in a tub) inside a vessel called a retort. He then heats the material until it the solid turns to vapors that when distilled into water cool, producing a white waxy substance, which glows in the dark.

Identification

The white substance was the first element to be isolated, formerly unknown to the ancients, and was taken from the Greek for "light-carrying", phosphorus. From this word, the word phosphorescence derives. Phosphorescence describes the relatively faint emission of light not arising from the combustion process, excluding light emitted instantaneously via fluorescence, which disappears upon removal of the source of the excitation. White phosphorus is element 15, atomic weight 31 on the Periodic Table of the Elements. Its electronic structure is 1s² 2s² 2p⁶ 3s² 3p³. Phosphorus has valences of +3 and +5. White phosphorus burns in air to produce the pentoxide, P₂O₅.

Chemistry of Urine

While the bowel is the source of elimination of non-soluble body wastes, the kidneys filter out water-soluble wastes. Thus urine is normally about 95 percent water, with the remaining content being water-soluble substances. These consist of many organics, such as urea, creatinine, uric acid, enzymes, hormones and mucins. Inorganic ions are also eliminated in urine, including sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, chloride, ammonium, sulfate and phosphate. It is these phosphates that are the largest source of the phosphorus found in urine.

Allotropes of Phosphorus

Although it is white phosphorus that was first discovered, there are other allotropes or forms of the element phosphorus that are safer to handle, including red, violet and black forms. Ordinary or white phosphorus exists as P₄ molecules. Red phosphorus is an amorphous network of phosphorus atoms. Violet phosphorus is a crystalline network form of phosphorus and is relatively stable. Black phosphorus is the most stable form of phosphorus and is somewhat analogous to the graphite form of carbon. Most interestingly, phosphorus nanorods have recently been discovered and are undergoing intense study.

References and Resources:

University of Wisconsin at Madison: The Periodic Table with Cultural Connections

University of Minnesota: Department of Soil, Water and Climate: Phosphorus - Basics

Ivy Rose Holistic: Urine and Urinalysis (The Composition of Urine)

Wiley Online: Phosphorus Nanorods