Electrical output of bryophyte microbial fuel cell systems is sufficient to power a radio or an environmental sensor

Abstract

Plant microbial fuel cells are a recently developed technology that exploits photosynthesis in vascular plants by harnessing solar energy and generating electrical power. In this study, the model moss species Physcomitrella patens, and other environmental samples of mosses, have been used to develop a non-vascular bryophyte microbial fuel cell (bryoMFC). A novel three-dimensional anodic matrix was successfully created and characterized and was further tested in a bryoMFC to determine the capacity of mosses to generate electrical power. The importance of anodophilic microorganisms in the bryoMFC was also determined. It was found that the non-sterile bryoMFCs operated with P. patens delivered over an order of magnitude higher peak power output (2.6 ± 0.6 µW m−2) than bryoMFCs kept in near-sterile conditions (0.2 ± 0.1 µW m−2). These results confirm the importance of the microbial populations for delivering electrons to the anode in a bryoMFC. When the bryoMFCs were operated with environmental samples of moss (non-sterile) the peak power output reached 6.7 ± 0.6 mW m−2. The bryoMFCs operated with environmental samples of moss were able to power a commercial radio receiver or an environmental sensor (LCD desktop weather station).

Recent advances in constructed wetland‐microbial fuel cells for simultaneous bioelectricity production and wastewater treatment: A review

“…Some types of alternative energy such as wind energy, solar, geothermal, and hydroelectric energy undoubtedly reduce the CO 2 emission. However, they have some disadvantages, such as landscape transformation, energy intensive processes, and geographical limitations …”

Electrochemical Characterisation of Bio-Bottle-Voltaic (BBV) Systems Operated with Algae and Built with Recycled Materials

“…In those devices, the organic compounds generated from the plants are metabolised by microorganisms in the rhizosphere to generate electricity [ 16 ]. Bombelli et al have also tested bryophytes and moss as non-vascular photosynthetic organisms in bryoMFCs [ 17 ].…”

Enhancement of bioelectric parameters of multi-electrode plant–microbial fuel cells by combining of serial and parallel connection

“…Graphite disk/ carbon felt were presented in the works Lu et al (2015). Many PMFC studies used as electrode pairs only graphite or carbon felt: graphite felt/graphite felt (Takanezawa et al 2010;Helder et al 2012;Yan et al 2018), graphite felt with multiple layers/graphite felt with single layer (Wetser et al 2015), carbon felt/porous carbon felt (Oon et al 2015) or only carbon product such as carbon fibers/carbon fibers (Moqsud et al 2015;Sarma and Mohanty 2018), carbon paper and carbon fibers (Bombelli et al 2016). Carbon granules/carbon felt, graphite felt/carbon polytetrafluorethylene coated and carbon fibers felt/granular activated carbon were designed for PMFC (Hubenova and Mitov 2012;Kouzuma et al 2013;Tapia et al 2018).…”