A milliliter-scale yeast-based fuel cell with high performance.

Abstract Microbial fuel cells are attracting attention as one of the systems for producing electrical energy from organic compounds. We used commercial baker's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) for a glucose fuel cell because the yeast is a safe organism and relatively high power can be generated in the system. In the present study, a milliliter (mL)-scale dual-chamber fuel cell was constructed for evaluating the power generated by a variety of yeasts and their mutants, and the optimum conditions for high performance were investigated. When carbon fiber bundles were used as an electrode in the fuel cell, high volumetric power density was obtained. The maximum power produced per volume of anode solution was 850 W/m3 under optimum conditions. Furthermore, the power was examined using seven kinds of yeast. In Kluyveromyces marxianus, not only the power but also the power per consumed glucose was high. Moreover, it was suggested that xylose is available as fuel for the fuel cell. The fuel cell powered by K. marxianus may prove to be helpful for the effective utilization of woody biomass.

[1]  Byoung-Chan Kim,et al.  Tunable metallic-like conductivity in microbial nanowire networks. , 2011, Nature nanotechnology.

[2]  B. Logan,et al.  The use of cloth fabric diffusion layers for scalable microbial fuel cells , 2013 .

[3]  T. D. Yuzvinsky,et al.  Electrical transport along bacterial nanowires from Shewanella oneidensis MR-1 , 2010, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[4]  Filip To,et al.  Performance of a Yeast-mediated Biological Fuel Cell , 2008, International journal of molecular sciences.

[5]  Kenji Kano,et al.  A high-power glucose/oxygen biofuel cell operating under quiescent conditions , 2009 .

[6]  Kaichang Li,et al.  Electricity production from twelve monosaccharides using microbial fuel cells , 2008 .

[7]  Baikun Li,et al.  Granular activated carbon single-chamber microbial fuel cells (GAC-SCMFCs): A design suitable for large-scale wastewater treatment processes , 2009 .

[8]  Sean F. Covalla,et al.  Power output and columbic efficiencies from biofilms of Geobacter sulfurreducens comparable to mixed community microbial fuel cells. , 2008, Environmental microbiology.

[9]  W. A. Scheffers,et al.  Glucose transport in crabtree-positive and crabtree-negative yeasts. , 1989, Journal of general microbiology.

[10]  Justin C. Biffinger,et al.  High power density from a miniature microbial fuel cell using Shewanella oneidensis DSP10. , 2006, Environmental science & technology.

[11]  Liping Huang,et al.  Electricity production from xylose in fed-batch and continuous-flow microbial fuel cells , 2008, Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology.

[12]  Hong Liu,et al.  Enhanced Coulombic efficiency and power density of air-cathode microbial fuel cells with an improved cell configuration , 2007 .

[13]  W. Verstraete,et al.  Microbial fuel cells: novel biotechnology for energy generation. , 2005, Trends in biotechnology.

[14]  Zhen He,et al.  A microfluidic microbial fuel cell fabricated by soft lithography. , 2011, Bioresource technology.

[15]  Alice Dohnalkova,et al.  Electrically conductive bacterial nanowires produced by Shewanella oneidensis strain MR-1 and other microorganisms. , 2006, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[16]  T. Mehta,et al.  Extracellular electron transfer via microbial nanowires , 2005, Nature.

[17]  A. Okamoto,et al.  Rate enhancement of bacterial extracellular electron transport involves bound flavin semiquinones , 2013, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[18]  Seokheun Choi,et al.  A μL-scale micromachined microbial fuel cell having high power density. , 2011, Lab on a chip.

[19]  Lital Alfonta,et al.  Surface display of redox enzymes in microbial fuel cells. , 2009, Journal of the American Chemical Society.

[20]  S. Babanova,et al.  Influence of artificial mediators on yeast-based fuel cell performance. , 2011, Journal of bioscience and bioengineering.

[21]  Derek R. Lovley,et al.  Aromatic Amino Acids Required for Pili Conductivity and Long-Range Extracellular Electron Transport in Geobacter sulfurreducens , 2013, mBio.

[22]  L. Alfonta,et al.  A hybrid biocathode: surface display of O2-reducing enzymes for microbial fuel cell applications. , 2012, Chemical communications.

[23]  C. Santoro,et al.  Power generation from wastewater using single chamber microbial fuel cells (MFCs) with platinum-free cathodes and pre-colonized anodes , 2012 .

[24]  Sang-Eun Oh,et al.  Thionine increases electricity generation from microbial fuel cell using Saccharomyces cerevisiae and exoelectrogenic mixed culture , 2012, Journal of Microbiology.