A novel mediatorless microbial fuel cell based on direct biocatalysis of Escherichia coli

Abstract

A mediatorless microbial fuel cell based on the direct biocatalysis of Escherichia coli shows significantly enhanced performance by using bacteria electrochemically-evolved in fuel cell environments through a natural selection process and a carbon/PTFE composite anode with an optimized PTFE content.

Improvement of bioelectrochemical property and energy recovery by acylhomoserine lactones (AHLs) in microbial electrolysis cells (MECs)

“…Increased cell growth rate and generation of metabolites was also associated with improved substrate uptaking and/or metabolites excretion [8], because overexpression of key proteins is regulated by AHLs [25]. Under the regulation of AHLs in bioelctrochemical communities, bacteria can evolve to enhance the transport of endogenous electron shuttles across cell membrane to achieve more efficient extracellular electron transfer [26,27].…”

Microbial Fuel Cells, A Current Review

“…These techniques can differentiate direct and indirect electron transfer process that occur within the anode-associated biofilms. Cyclic voltammograms have been used to interpret the electron transfer process occurring within an anode associated biofilm, which can vary depending on the stage of biofilm development, the biofilm community and power generation by the anode associated biofilm [59,[88][89][90][91][92]. The cyclic voltammograms can be quite complex, for example when G. sulfurreducens was examined using cyclic voltammetery the complexity of the voltammogram was increased at lower scan rates increasing the distinguishable redox systems from 2 to 4 or more [89].…”

Engineering materials and biology to boost performance of microbial fuel cells: a critical review

“…Finally, another interesting option was proposed by Zhang et al, 60,61 who investigated graphite-polytetrafluoroethylene composite films as anodes for E. coli-based MFCs and observed that the polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) content in the anode film affected the catalytic activity of the electrochemically activated E. coli. They obtained a power density of 760 mW m À2 with a composite anode containing 30% PTFE in absence of exogenous mediators.…”