IAFE   05512
INSTITUTO DE ASTRONOMIA Y FISICA DEL ESPACIO
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
artículos
Título:
Archaea-based Microbial Fuel Cell Operating at High Ionic Strength Conditions
Autor/es:
ABREVAYA, X. C.; SACCO, N.; MAUAS, P.J.D.; CORTÓN, E.
Revista:
EXTREMOPHILES
Editorial:
SPRINGER TOKYO
Referencias:
Lugar: Tokyo; Año: 2011 vol. 15 p. 633 - 642
ISSN:
1431-0651
Resumen:
In this work, two archaea microorganisms (Haloferax volcanii and Natrialba magadii) used as biocatalyst at a microbial fuel cell (MFC) anode were evaluated. Both archaea are able to grow at high salt concentrations. By increasing the media conductivity, the internal resistance was diminished, improving the MFC´s performance. Without any added redox mediator, maximum power (P (max)) and current at P (max) were 11.87/4.57/0.12 μW cm(-2) and 49.67/22.03/0.59 μA cm(-2) for H. volcanii, N. magadii and E. coli, respectively. When neutral red was used as the redox mediator, P (max) was 50.98 and 5.39 μW cm(-2) for H. volcanii and N. magadii, respectively. In this paper, an archaea MFC is described and compared with other MFC systems; the high salt concentration assayed here, comparable with that used in Pt-catalyzed alkaline hydrogen fuel cells, will open new options when MFC scaling up is the objective necessary for practical applications.