An innovative toilet can turn waste into renewable power and doesn’t need water to flush anything away.

Cranfield University’s Nano Membrane Toilet was developed to provide people around the world suffering from limited access to sanitation, water or electricity with a clean and affordable toilet in their homes.

It uses a rotating mechanism to ‘flush’ the waste into a holding tank, where solids settle to the bottom and liquids float to the top.

The solids are transported out of the tank by a screw mechanism and burned to generate heat, which can be converted into electricity to power toilet operations and charge mobile phones.

The liquids pass into a bundle of nanostructure membranes, which extract clean water from the waste – this can then be used in the household for tasks like washing dishes or clothes.

The developers of the toilet say it is small and easy to transport to locations where there is no access to a water supply or sewers.