 Auto-feeding microbial fuel cell inspired by transpiration of plantsShiqiang Wu, Sunil A. Patil and Shuiliang Chen Applied Energy, 2018, vol. 225, issue C, 934-939 Abstract: Inspired by the transpiration process in plants, we report an auto-feeding microbial fuel cell (AF-MFC), in which the fuel (substrate solution) is fed automatically through a process similar to transpiration in natural plants without using any external equipment and applying extra power. The AF-MFC consisted of a bioanode, an air–cathode, hydrogel electrolyte, and a glass capillary feeding channel. The auto-feeding process was realized by the fact that evaporative loss of water from the air–cathode of the AF-MFC reduces pressure in the hydrogel electrolyte; which, in turn, pulls substrate solution to the AF-MFC to maintain hydration of the hydrogel electrolyte. The AF-MFC was able to generate a stable voltage of 0.55 V across a 1000 Ω resistor and a maximum power density of 1182 ± 115 mW m−2 (normalized to the projected area of air–cathode) and 295.5 ± 28.8 W m−3 (normalized to the total volume of the MFC). This study thus provides a new way to fabricate self-sustaining portable MFCs and greatly simplifies the feeding system of the MFCs. Keywords: Auto-feeding; Microbial fuel cell; Hydrogel electrolyte; Transpiration; Air-cathode; Capillary (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:appene:v:225:y:2018:i:c:p:934-939 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2018.05.080 Access Statistics for this article Applied Energy is currently edited by J. Yan More articles in Applied Energy from Elsevier |
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