It’s not out there in your daily newspapers but within scientific journals and research centres across the globe there’s a lot of work & discussion on microbial fuel cell (MFC) technology.
Researchers at the Biodesign Institute are using the tiniest organisms on the planet — bacteria — as a viable option to make electricity. In a new study featured in the journal Biotechnology and Bioengineering, lead author Andrew Kato Marcus and colleagues Cesar Torres and Bruce Rittmann have gained critical insights that may lead to commercialization of a promising microbial fuel cell (MFC) technology. The project has been funded by NASA and industrial partners OpenCEL and NZLegacy.
”We can use any kind of waste, such as sewage or pig manure, and the microbial fuel cell will generate electrical energy,” said Marcus, a Civil and Environmental Engineering graduate student and a member of the institute’s Center for Environmental Biotechnology. Unlike conventional fuel cells that rely on hydrogen gas as a fuel source, the microbial fuel cell can handle a variety of water-based organic fuels.
“There is a lot of biomass out there that we look at simply as energy stored in the wrong place,” said Bruce Rittmann, director of the center. “We can take this waste, keeping it in its normal liquid form, but allowing the bacteria to convert the energy value to our society’s most useful form, electricity. They get food while we get electricity.”
If you’re interested in the science behind MFC technology read more here.
Environment Solutions 