The Supergen5 Biological Fuel Cells Consortium
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Oxford
Department Name: Oxford Chemistry
Abstract
A consortium of teams from 6 universities aims to achieve major advances in a technology that potentially produces electricity directly from sustainable biological materials and air, in devices known as biological fuel cells. These devices are of two main types: in microbial fuel cells micro-organisms convert organic materials into fuels that can be oxidised in electrochemical cells, and in enzymatic fuel cells electricity is produced as a result of the action of an enzyme (a biological catalyst). Fuels that can be used include (1) pure biochemicals such as glucose, (2) hydrogen gas and (3) organic chemicals present in waste water.The Consortium programme involves a unique combination of microbiology, enzymology, electrochemistry, materials science and computational modelling. Key challenges that the Consortium will face include modelling and understanding the interaction of an electrochemical cell and a population of micro-organisms, attaching and optimising appropriate enzymes, developing and studying synthetic assemblies that contain the active site of a natural enzyme, optimising electrode materials for this application, and designing, building and testing novel biological fuel cells.A Biofuel Cells Industrial Club is to be formed, with industrial partners active in water management, porous materials, microbiology, biological catalysis and fuel cell technology. The programme and its outcomes will be significant steps towards producing electricity from materials and techniques originating in the life sciences. The technology is likely to be perceived as greener than use of solely chemical and engineering approaches, and there is considerable potential for spin off in changed technologies (e.g. cost reductions, reduction in the need for precious metals, biological catalysts for production of hydrogen by electrolysis).
Organisations
- University of Oxford (Lead Research Organisation)
- Kelda Group (United Kingdom) (Project Partner)
- Anglian Water Services (United Kingdom) (Project Partner)
- Thames Water (United Kingdom) (Project Partner)
- Heraeus (United Kingdom) (Project Partner)
- CMR Surgical (United Kingdom) (Project Partner)
- MAST Carbon (United Kingdom) (Project Partner)
- Biocatalysts (United Kingdom) (Project Partner)
Publications
Amini N
(2011)
Processing of strong and highly conductive carbon foams as electrode
in Carbon
Wu X
(2011)
A role for microbial palladium nanoparticles in extracellular electron transfer.
in Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English)
Michie IS
(2011)
Operational temperature regulates anodic biofilm growth and the development of electrogenic activity.
in Applied microbiology and biotechnology
Kim JR
(2011)
Application of Co-naphthalocyanine (CoNPc) as alternative cathode catalyst and support structure for microbial fuel cells.
in Bioresource technology
Kim J
(2011)
Increasing power recovery and organic removal efficiency using extended longitudinal tubular microbial fuel cell (MFC) reactors
in Energy Environ. Sci.
Premier G
(2011)
Automatic control of load increases power and efficiency in a microbial fuel cell
in Journal of Power Sources
Kim JR
(2011)
Spatiotemporal development of the bacterial community in a tubular longitudinal microbial fuel cell.
in Applied microbiology and biotechnology
Popov A
(2012)
The effect of physico-chemically immobilized methylene blue and neutral red on the anode of microbial fuel cell
in Biotechnology and Bioprocess Engineering
Beecroft NJ
(2012)
Dynamic changes in the microbial community composition in microbial fuel cells fed with sucrose.
in Applied microbiology and biotechnology
Description | How Hydrogenases Work at the Atomic Level |
Amount | £722,942 (GBP) |
Funding ID | BB/N006321/1 |
Organisation | Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 04/2016 |
End | 03/2019 |