Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs) offer unique technology that can purify water without consuming power but rather generating electricity in the process. MFCs are innovative devices that harness the naturally occurring biochemical reactions in bacteria to harvest energy and this novel MFC produces record current densities at the same time as it cleans wastewater.
Under Professor Gary Amy’s leadership at KAUST’s Water Desalination and Reuse Center, this work is well underway.
Justine Mink, an Environmental Science and Engineering PhD candidate and her peer Jhonathan Rojas, both founding class members, have been published in Nano Letters for successfully demonstrating a micro-sized (1.25 uL) MFC device using micro fabrication techniques and carbon nanotubes. Co-Authors Professors Bruce Logan (Pennsylvania State University) and Muhammad Hussain, (KAUST’s Integrated Nanotechnology Lab) mentored Mink and Rojas and the paper to publication.
Think of it as a miniature battery (working size fits on the tip of your finger) fueled by wastewater (or any liquid containing a carbon source that the bacteria can eat such as sugar), to produce power; in this case the nutrient is acetate. The MFC is simply recharged by adding more liquid. (Click here to read more about the recognition they received last year for this work.)
Applications range from powering portable devices in remote locations, sensors, and lab-on-a-chip applications to more laboratory-based tools for the rapid screening of macroscale microbial fuel cell materials and conditions.