Miniaturizing microbial fuel cells for potential portable power sources: promises and challenges

Ren, Hao; Lee, Hyung-Sool; Chae, Junseok

doi:10.1007/s10404-012-0986-7

Cited by 146 publications

(86 citation statements)

References 194 publications

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“…At the cathode, the electrons are used to reduce an oxidizing agent, usually oxygen [2]. In this way substrates are oxidized at the same time that an electrical current is produced [3][4][5][6].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heterotrophic Anodic Denitrification in Microbial Fuel Cells

Drewnowski

Fernández-Morales

2016

Sustainability

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Nowadays, pollution caused by energy production systems is a major environmental concern. Therefore, the development of sustainable energy sources is required. Amongst others, the microbial fuel cell (MFC) seems to be a possible solution because it can produce clean energy at the same time that waste is stabilized. Unfortunately, mainly due to industrial discharges, the wastes could contain nitrates, or nitrates precursors such ammonia, which could lead to lower performance in terms of electricity production. In this work, the feasibility of coupling anodic denitrification process with electricity production in MFC and the effect of the nitrates over the MFC performance were studied. During the experiments, it was observed that the culture developed in the anodic chamber of the MFC presented a significant amount of denitrificative microorganisms. The MFC developed was able to denitrify up to 4 ppm, without affecting the current density exerted, of about 1 mA/cm 2 . Regarding the denitrification process, it must be highlighted that the maximum denitrification rate achieved with the culture was about 60 mg¨NO 3´¨L´1¨h´1 . Based on these results, it can be stated that it is possible to remove nitrates and to produce energy, without negatively affecting the electrical performance, when the nitrate concentration is low.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heterotrophic Anodic Denitrification in Microbial Fuel Cells

Drewnowski

Fernández-Morales

2016

Sustainability

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“…Making use of innovative features and environmental benefits of sustainable biomass energy extraction for applications would be inevitable. As a matter of fact, microbial fuel cells (MFCs) are bioelectrochemical devices that use electroactive microbes and mimicked bacterial interactions as biocatalysts to drive current of bioenergy from oxidation of organics for bioelectricity generation and wastewater treatment (Logan et al 2006;Ren et al 2012;Pant et al 2010;Rabaey and Verstraete 2005;Rozendal et al 2008Rozendal et al , 2009. MFCs apparently would be promising platform to evaluate feasibility of bioresources for biorefinery/bioenergy practicability.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Electron transport phenomena of electroactive bacteria in microbial fuel cells: a review of Proteus hauseri

Hsueh

Chen

2017

Bioresour. Bioprocess.

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This review tended to decipher the expression of electron transfer capability (e.g., biofilm formation, electron shuttles, swarming motility, dye decolorization, bioelectricity generation) to microbial fuel cells (MFCs). As mixed culture were known to perform better than pure microbial cultures for optimal expression of electrochemically stable activities to pollutant degradation and bioenergy recycling, Proteus hauseri isolated as a "keystone species" to maintain such ecologically stable potential for power generation in MFCs was characterized. P. hauseri expressed outstanding performance of electron transfer (ET)-associated characteristics [e.g., reductive decolorization (RD) and bioelectricity generation (BG)] for electrochemically steered bioremediation even though it is not a nanowire-generating bacterium. This review tended to uncover taxonomic classification, genetic or genomic characteristics, enzymatic functions, and bioelectricity-generating capabilities of Proteus spp. with perspectives for electrochemical practicability. As a matter of fact, using MFCs as a tool to evaluate ET capabilities, dye decolorizer(s) could clearly express excellent performance of simultaneous bioelectricity generation and reductive decolorization (SBG and RD) due to feedback catalysis of residual decolorized metabolites (DMs) as electron shuttles (ESs). Moreover, the presence of reduced intermediates of nitroaromatics or DMs as ESs could synergistically augment efficiency of reductive decolorization and power generation. With swarming mobility, P. hauseri could own significant biofilm-forming capability to sustain ecologically stable consortia for RD and BG. This mini-review evidently provided lost episodes of great significance about bioenergysteered applications in myriads of fields (e.g., biodegradation, biorefinery, and electro-fermentation). Keywords

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“…A microbial fuel cell electrochemically converts biomass into electricity through the catalytic activity of specific species of bacteria, named exoelectrogen or anode-respiring bacteria, which are capable of transfer electrons outside their outer membrane [1][2][3]. During the past two decades, significant improvement on MFC has been demonstrated; for instance, the power density of microbial fuel cells have improved by more than four orders of magnitude, from 0.1 mWm −2 to 7.72 Wm −2 [4][5][6].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Miniaturized MFCs are emerging technologies that utilize microfabrication for MFCs, which results in the characteristics of small footprint, low expense, batch fabrication, improved diffusion, high surface area to volume to ratio, etc. [1,[16][17][18]. Particularly, the small footprint makes miniaturized MFCs with a very small thermal mass, which is suitable for the temperature to be controlled within a short period of time [19].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effect of temperature on a miniaturized microbial fuel cell (MFC)

Ren

Jiang

Chae

2017

Micro and Nano Syst Lett

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A microbial fuel cell (MFC) is a bioinspired energy converter which directly converts biomass into electricity through the catalytic activity of a specific species of bacteria. The effect of temperature on a miniaturized microbial fuel cell with Geobacter sulfurreducens dominated mixed inoculum is investigated in this paper for the first time. The miniaturized MFC warrants investigation due to its small thermal mass, and a customized setup is built for the temperature effect characterization. The experiment demonstrates that the optimal temperature for the miniaturized MFC is 322-326 K (49-53 °C). When the temperature is increased from 294 to 322 K, a remarkable current density improvement of 282% is observed, from 2.2 to 6.2 Am −2. Furthermore, we perform in depth analysis on the effect of temperature on the miniaturized MFC, and found that the activation energy for the current limiting mechanism of the MFC is approximately between 0.132 and 0.146 eV, and the result suggest that the electron transfer between cytochrome c is the limiting process for the miniaturized MFC.

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Miniaturizing microbial fuel cells for potential portable power sources: promises and challenges

Cited by 146 publications

References 194 publications

Heterotrophic Anodic Denitrification in Microbial Fuel Cells

Heterotrophic Anodic Denitrification in Microbial Fuel Cells

Electron transport phenomena of electroactive bacteria in microbial fuel cells: a review of Proteus hauseri

Effect of temperature on a miniaturized microbial fuel cell (MFC)

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