Urine transduction to usable energy: A modular MFC approach for smartphone and remote system charging

Walter, Xavier Alexis; Stinchcombe, Andrew; Greenman, John; Ieropoulos, Ioannis

doi:10.1016/j.apenergy.2016.06.006

Cited by 106 publications

(59 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…A successful example of a combination of MFCs with batteries and supercapacitors comes from the robotic field with Gastrobot and EcoBots family . Other practical applications through a combination of supercapacitors and MFCs have also been reported . The different possible combinations of MFC and power management systems are described in detail in a recent review .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Boosting Microbial Fuel Cell Performance by Combining with an External Supercapacitor: An Electrochemical Study

et al. 2020

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Microbial fuel cells (MFCs), despite representing a promising technology, suffer from low power generation that hinders, in most of the cases, their application as power sources. In fact, MFCs are usually coupled with supercapacitors or batteries and these storage units accumulate the energy harvested by MFCs and deliver it on demand. In this work, the electrodes of a MFC are used as electrodes of an internal supercapacitor and discharges and self‐recharges are performed and investigated. Discharges between 1.5 mA and 4 mA were presented producing a maximum power of 1.59 mW. Discharges between 1 mA and 100 mA and recharges are systematically studied for three commercial supercapacitors (SCs) with different capacitances of 1 F, 3 F, and 6 F. The MFC was also connected in parallel with external SCs and discharged galvanostatically. The SC was self‐recharged by the MFC without any additional external power sources. At lower current pulses, the MFC contributed to the overall capacitance, probably owing to its faradaic component. At higher current pulses, the use of SCs enables the energy to be harvested by MFCs at power levels that could not be achieved with the MFC alone. This study demonstrates that, through the proper connection and operation mode of the MFC and SC, it is possible to improve and maximize the performance of every single unit. Understanding the MFC−SC combination is important for identifying the right practical application for which the combination is suitable.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Boosting Microbial Fuel Cell Performance by Combining with an External Supercapacitor: An Electrochemical Study

et al. 2020

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“…Figure C) was rearranged from Ref. [70], Elsevier, under licence CC BY 4.0. enables the densification of the electroactive reactions whilst keeping short diffusion distances, which result in high power density levels. Walter et al demonstrated in 2016 that (1) the "transient chemical membrane" was sufficient to prevent losses from an electron flow between the anodic and cathodic layers, and (2) the reactors were scalable in length and width with minimal efficiency losses.…”

Section: Membraneless Microbial Fuel Cell Treating Urinementioning

confidence: 99%

“…[72] The first practical demonstration was made by assembling a full autonomous system tailored for a single user ( � 2.4 L urine per day) and able to charge a modified Samsung GTÀ E2121B (ca.150 mAh lithium battery). A single cascade of 6 modules electrically connected in series produced a continuous electrical output of 2.5 V at 40 mA (100 mW), and was able to power 3 h of continuous phone communication every 6 h, with as little as 600 mL urine every 6 h. [70] Beside urine treatment and power generation, this type of design was also applied to the development of internal selfpowered supercapacitive MFCs fed with human urine. [73] Supercapacitor MFCs (empty volume 550 μL) were shown to produce a peak power of � 1.20 mW ( � 2.19 mW ml À 1 ) for a pulse time of 0.01 s that decreased to � 0.65 mW ( � 1.18 mW ml À 1 ) for longer pulse periods (5 s).…”

Section: Membraneless Microbial Fuel Cell Treating Urinementioning

confidence: 99%

Urine in Bioelectrochemical Systems: An Overall Review

et al. 2020

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In recent years, human urine has been successfully used as an electrolyte and organic substrate in bioelectrochemical systems (BESs) mainly due of its unique properties. Urine contains organic compounds that can be utilised as a fuel for energy recovery in microbial fuel cells (MFCs) and it has high nutrient concentrations including nitrogen and phosphorous that can be concentrated and recovered in microbial electrosynthesis cells and microbial concentration cells. Moreover, human urine has high solution conductivity, which reduces the ohmic losses of these systems, improving BES output. This review describes the most recent advances in BESs utilising urine. Properties of neat human urine used in state‐of‐the‐art MFCs are described from basic to pilot‐scale and real implementation. Utilisation of urine in other bioelectrochemical systems for nutrient recovery is also discussed including proofs of concept to scale up systems.

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“…Urine is an excellent raw material for MFC systems for real applications 26 . In addition to treating urine with MFC, the results of recent studies are promising for the direct recovery of bioelectricity from urine 27,28 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Polarization and power density trends of a soil‐based microbial fuel cell treated with human urine

et al. 2020

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Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) are bio-electrochemical devices that use microbial metabolic processes to convert organic substances into electricity with high efficiency. In this study, the performance of a soil-based MFC using urine as a substrate was assessed using polarization and power density curves. A singlechamber, membrane-less MFC with a carbon-felt air cathode and a carbon-felt anode fully buried in biologically active soil was constructed to examine the impact of urine treatment on the performance of the MFC. The peak power of the urine-treated MFC was 124.16 mW/m 2 and was obtained 24 hours after the first urine addition; a control MFC showed a value of 65.40 mW/m 2 in the same period. The treated MFC produced an average power of 70.75 mW/m 2 up to 21 days after the initial urine addition; the control MFC gave an average value of 4.508 mW/m 2 over the same period. The average internal resistances of the treated MFC and the control MFC obtained after the initial treatment were 269.94 and 1627.89 Ω, respectively. This study demonstrates the potential of human urine to reduce internal losses in soil MFCs and to provide stable power densities across various external resistors. These results are propitious for future advancements in soil MFCs for power generation utilizing human urine (a readily available source of nutrients) as a substrate.

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Urine transduction to usable energy: A modular MFC approach for smartphone and remote system charging

Cited by 106 publications

References 27 publications

Boosting Microbial Fuel Cell Performance by Combining with an External Supercapacitor: An Electrochemical Study

Boosting Microbial Fuel Cell Performance by Combining with an External Supercapacitor: An Electrochemical Study

Urine in Bioelectrochemical Systems: An Overall Review

Polarization and power density trends of a soil‐based microbial fuel cell treated with human urine

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