There’s a shiny black espresso machine prominently displayed in Shannon Yee’s office in Tech’s George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. While Yee is indeed a coffee drinker, there’s a more important reason for the machine’s presence: Its compact and efficient design may hold the key to meeting the needs of the approximately 2.5 billion people worldwide who now lack improved sanitation. An associate professor specializing in energy technologies, Yee is leading a $13.5 million effort funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to reinvent the toilet—technology that hasn’t changed much in more than a century. High pressure, heat, and control of liquids are essential to making a good cup of espresso. They are also critical for a creating a 21st-century toilet that can operate with no plumbing or sewerage connections and as small an amount of electricity as a single solar panel could provide.
Earlier research made significant progress, but gaps remain. Now research teams at Tech and other schools have 42 months to figure out how to make six new toilet prototypes ready for a commercial manufacturer.
