Samsung Electronics announced this Thursday, August 25, that it has completed a project in collaboration with the Melinda and Bill Gates Foundation in response to the Reinvent the Toilet Challenge, which will result in the creation of the toilet of the future.
This toilet prototype is safe and designed for home use. It is the work of the Samsung Institute of Advanced Technology (SAIT), which began work on the reimagined toilet in 2019 and recently finished developing core technologies for the toilet.
Reinvent the Toilet Challenge is the initiative of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, launched in 2011, to develop transformative toilet technologies that can handle human waste safely and effectively.
Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Jay Y. Lee met with Bill Gates, Co-Chairman of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, on August 16 to discuss the outcome of the reinvented toilet project and exchange ideas on global social contribution initiatives.
During the meeting, Gates shared his philanthropic vision and the Foundation’s ongoing initiatives, and Vice President Lee expressed his commitment to using Samsung technologies to help address the challenges facing humanity.
The common goal is to help developing countries
Samsung plans offer royalty-free licenses of patents related to the project to developing countries during the marketing stage. The South Korean company will also continue to provide close advice to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to help bring the technologies into mass production.
The toilet of the future is energy efficient, with effluent treatment capacity and meets the performance required by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for commercialization.
The core technologies developed by Samsung They include thermal treatment and bioprocessing technologies to remove pathogens from human waste and make the effluents and released solids safe for the environment.
The system allows the treated water to be completely recycled and the solid waste to be dehydrated, dried and burned to ashes, while the liquid waste is treated through a biological purification process.
For three years, SAIT worked on the basic design and developed the component and modular technology, leading to the successful development of a prototype for home use.