Plant Microbial Fuel Cells–Based Energy Harvester System for Self-powered IoT Applications

Abstract

The emergence of modern technologies, such as Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), the Internet-of-Things (IoT), and Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications, involves the use of batteries, which pose a serious environmental risk, with billions of batteries disposed of every year. However, the combination of sensors and wireless communication devices is extremely power-hungry. Energy Harvesting (EH) is fundamental in enabling the use of low-power electronic devices that derive their energy from external sources, such as Microbial Fuel Cells (MFC), solar power, thermal and kinetic energy, among others. Plant Microbial Fuel Cell (PMFC) is a prominent clean energy source and a step towards the development of self-powered systems in indoor and outdoor environments. One of the main challenges with PMFCs is the dynamic power supply, dynamic charging rates and low-energy supply. In this paper, a PMFC-based energy harvester system is proposed for the implementation of autonomous self-powered sensor nodes with IoT and cloud-based service communication protocols. The PMFC design is specifically adapted with the proposed EH circuit for the implementation of IoT-WSN based applications. The PMFC-EH system has a maximum power point at 0.71 V, a current density of 5 mA cm − 2 , and a power density of 3.5 mW cm − 2 with a single plant. Considering a sensor node with a current consumption of 0.35 mA, the PMFC-EH green energy system allows a power autonomy for real-time data processing of IoT-based low-power WSN systems.

ZigBee Radio Frequency (RF) Performance on Raspberry Pi 3 for Internet of Things (IoT) based Blood Pressure Sensors Monitoring

“…Muhammad Anwar, Abdul Hanan Abdullah, Ayman Altameem, Kashif Naseer Qureshi, Farhan Masud, Muhammad Faheem, Yue Cao, and Rupak Kharel [13], in their research tried to implement the Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) on the patient's body and analyze its routing system using the energy-aware link efficient routing approach (ELR-W), therefore, the goal is to save energy from the Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN). accordingly, in Wireless Sensor Network (WSN), WBAN, M2M Communication, it is very important for energy efficiency factors, i.e, batteries used, so the use of dynamic Power Supply such as PMFC is important, Plant-Microbial Fuel Cell (PMFC) as an energy source is especially appropriate in designing indoor systems or Outdoor environments [14], In this research, it refers to WBAN technology [14], by developing a Blood Pressure sensor with a light type that is convenient to be used by Patients.…”

Activated Carbon Mixed with Marine Sediment is Suitable as Bioanode Material for Spartina anglica Sediment/Plant Microbial Fuel Cell: Plant Growth, Electricity Generation, and Spatial Microbial Community Diversity

“…For instance, one could design and install a less required power sensor powered by a Plant-MFC. This bio sensor could be coupled with an internet of things (IoT) application [77] to monitor a wetland condition, i.e., water level.…”

A Self-Powered PMFC-Based Wireless Sensor Node for Smart City Applications

“…This is because the energy consumption of the sensor and microcontroller are not considered in the experiments which would result in a transmission cost increase. Finally, authors in [14] reported a PMFC-EH system for an IoTbased WSN based on Cordyline fruticosa plant. The designed PMFC was able to provide 3.5 mW/cm 2 with 0.7 V and 5 mA.…”