In this research, we fabricated a low-cost, disposable, paper-based bio fuel cell that used an activated carbon-based anode with the pre-inoculated biofilm of Bacillus Subtilis bacteria. The biofilm anode was dried for long-term storage and the bio fuel cell could generate electricity on-demand within some minutes after adding a drop of tap water to the dry biofilm anode. The anodic activated carbon substrate was treated by a plasma cleaner to increase hydrophilization before inoculating bacterial biofilm. The fuel cell case was made of a normal paper filter. We integrated directly the air-cathode and proton exchange membrane on the fuel cell case. The paper-based bio fuel cell can be potentially used for micropower biosensor applications.

We fabricated a microbial fuel cell (MFC) which was composed of three parts: a piece of towel paper for membrane, an anode electrode with photosynthetic bacteria biofilm and a cathode electrode coated potassium ferricyanide. The MFC could generate electricity with 20 µl water adding to the dry biofilm anode for activation. We measured repeatedly electricity generation every week using the MFC. This paper studies three points: (1) the dry-surface biofilms of Purple photosynthetic bacteria can generate electricity when activated by water; (2) the bacteria can survive in the condition of dry-surface biofilms for several weeks; (3) carbon nanotube (CNT) improves the performance of the electrodes. As a result, the MFC generated the maximum power density and current density of 2.90 µW/cm 2 and 24.1 µA/cm 2 , respectively.

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