Bio-electricity production from Fibroblasts and their cultivation media

Abstract

The recent understanding of the critical future damage that might happen on earth by climate change has urged scientists to initiate new creative ideas for clean energy technologies that will reduce carbon emissions. A promising approach is the utilization of living cells as electron donors in bio-electrochemical cells (BECs). This concept has been intensively studied for micro-organisms such as non-photosynthetic bacteria, cyanobacteria, and microalgae, but not for mammalian cells. In this work, we report for the first-time integrating live fibroblast cells in a BEC to produce electrical current that is about 3 times higher than intact micro-organisms. Furthermore, we apply 2D-fluorescence and electrochemical measurements to show that like in micro-organisms based BECs, NADH and flavins play a role in the electron mediation between the cells and the anode. Finally, we show that the cultivation medium of fibroblasts also consists of redox species that may produce dark and photocurrent.