Stanford Scientists Use 'Wired Microbes' To Generate Electricity From Sewage
Engineers at Stanford University have devised a new way to generate electricity from sewage using naturally-occurring “wired microbes” as mini power plants, producing electricity as they digest plant and animal waste.
In a paper published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, co-authors Yi Cui, a materials scientist, Craig Criddle, an environmental engineer, and Xing Xie, an interdisciplinary fellow, call their invention a microbial battery.
One day they hope it will be used in places such as sewage treatment plants, or to break down organic pollutants in the “dead zones” of lakes and coastal waters where fertilizer runoff and other organic waste can deplete oxygen levels and suffocate marine life.
At the moment, however, their laboratory prototype is about the size of a D-cell battery and looks like a chemistry experiment, with two electrodes, one positive, the other negative, plunged into a bottle of wastewater.
Inside that murky vial, attached to the negative electrode like barnacles to a ship’s hull, an unusual type of bacteria feast on particles of organic waste and produce electricity that is captured by the battery’s positive electrode.
"We call it fishing for electrons," said Criddle, a professor in the department of civil and environmental engineering and a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.
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http://engineering.stanford.edu/news/stanford-scientists-use-wired-microbes-generate-electricity-sewage
= new reply since forum marked as read
Even if they don't find a low cost electrode (and hence it remains impractical for
real-world use), reading that reminds me how it really is a wonder-filled world.
Thanks!
