Malaysian students built a device that turns sink wastewater into electricity

Malaysian students have built a prototype that attempts to recover electricity from one of the most overlooked sources of wasted energy in a home, water flowing down the sink. Developed by three students at Universiti Malaya, WattsUp is an IoT-enabled micro-hydropower system designed specifically for the weak and intermittent flow produced by household wastewater. Rather than allowing the water to immediately disappear down the drain, the system filters and temporarily stores it before releasing it through a nozzle at higher speed. The resulting water jet drives a small Pelton turbine connected to a generator. The students developed the concept because conventional hydropower systems generally depend on larger and more continuous flows, whereas household wastewater arrives in short bursts.