INTEMA   05428
INSTITUTO DE INVESTIGACIONES EN CIENCIA Y TECNOLOGIA DE MATERIALES
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
Producción de electricidad en lechos acuáticos con bacterias electroactivas
Autor/es:
FIER, GUIDO; BONANNI, PABLO SEBASTIAN; SCHROTT, GERMÁN DAVID; BUSALMEN, JUAN PABLO
Reunión:
Congreso; X CONGRESO ARGENTINO DE MICROBIOLOGIA GENERAL SAMIGE; 2014
Institución organizadora:
Samige
Resumen:
Electro-active bacteria can use a polarized electrode as the final electron-acceptor for their respiratory chain. In this way, they can couple degradation of organic compounds to the production of electric current. These bacteria are present in most sedimentary environments where they use simple carbon compounds such as acetate, as carbon and electron source, while they use insoluble metallic oxides as electron acceptor. Typically, the activity of these bacteria is limited by the availability of electron acceptors (i.e. metallic oxides). This limitation can be cancelled introducing polarized electrodes in the sediment, which leads to the formation of an electrogenic biofilm on the electrode surface and to the production of a stable low amplitude current coming directly from the bacterial metabolic activity. This energy can be used to operate marine-deployed instruments normally powered by alkaline batteries, with lower maintenance requirements and lower cost.  We have studied the production of electricity by electro-active bacteria from natural aquatic environments replicated in the laboratory at small scale. We have tested different electrode materials and configurations and achieved a design that produces almost 50mW per m2 of submerged electrode. This energy would allow charging Li-ion batteries as those typically used in mobile devises with less than a square meter of electrode.