High power density redox-mediated Shewanella microbial flow fuel cells
Leyuan Zhang, Yucheng Zhang, Yang Liu, Sibo Wang +3
AI summary
70% confidenceResearchers developed a new type of microbial fuel cell (MFC) that uses artificial redox mediators to increase power density by overcoming mass transport limitations.
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- System
- MFC
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Abstract
Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) utilize exoelectrogenic microorganisms to directly convert organic matter into electricity, offering a compelling approach for simultaneous power generation and wastewater treatment. However, conventional MFCs typically require thick biofilms for sufficient metabolic electron production rate, which inevitably compromises mass and electron transport, posing a fundamental tradeoff of limiting the achievable power density (<1 mW cm⁻²). Herein, we report a new concept of redox mediated microbial flow fuel cells (MFFCs) by exploiting artificial redox mediators in flowing medium to efficiently transfer metabolic electrons from bacteria to electrodes, which effectively overcomes mass transport limitations and markedly reduces internal resistance. The biofilm-free MFFC thus breaks the inherent tradeoff in dense biofilms, resulting in a maximum current density surpassing 40 mA cm⁻² and a highest power density exceeding 10 mW cm⁻², approximately one order of magnitude higher than those of state-of-the-art MFCs, to the best of our knowledge.
Key findings
- Maximum current density of 40 mA cm⁻² achieved
- Highest power density of 10 mW cm⁻² exceeded
- One order of magnitude higher power density than state-of-the-art MFCs
Keywords
Identifiers
- Journal
- ChemRxiv
- Year
- 2024