Cast and 3D printed ion exchange membranes for monolithic microbial fuel cell fabrication

Toward Energetically Autonomous Foraging Soft Robots

“…This entirely new mechanism for feeding a novel power source will enable increased use of soft robots in real world aquatic environments. In this study, the materials and dimensions of the MFC design were chosen so that the performance of novel design features (the mouth) may be directly evaluated against the results of previous work using the same configuration of MFC [28]. However, future work may include adapting the design of the artificial stomach to include features that related work has shown to improve MFC performance in terms of increased energy output ( [36], [37]).…”

“…The MFC cathode chambers were produced from acrylic to replicate the design of an analytical style MFC, enabling direct comparison of the performance of the novel feeding mechanism with this well-established design. For example, recent work has shown 5J per batch of food administered can be generated using this type of analytical-style MFC [28]. (b) Schematic detailing the components of the MFCs used in this study.…”

“…The torque was derived from the current drawn by the motor. Based on previous work using analytical style MFCs ( Figure 6), E mf c can be estimated as 5J [28]. W body can be estimated as W open + W close (Table 1).…”

“…The composition of the fluid was chosen to replicate that used in previous work [28] demonstrating power production from MFCs of this type.…”

“…The motors were powered by the discharge of 3 x 1F super-capacitors charged in series to 5.5V (5J), representing the typical energy output of a batch fed, analytical style MFC [28]. The amplification, for example by boost conversion, and associated energy loss due to efficiency, required to achieve this voltage using typical MFC output, was neglected in these experiments.…”