Bacterial Fuel: The Energy
of the Future

chillibreeze writer — Anand

All automobiles use fossil fuel such as petroleum or diesel. When the internal combustion engine uses the gasoline, it releases carbon dioxide carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, and hydrogen carbons. This contamination causes buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, acid rain, and air pollution. This can damage the precious ozone layer. Therefore, alternate source of energy is the need of the hour. This source it should be cheaper and more efficient as compared to current fuel. In short, this alternate source should be ecofriendly. Most fuel cells use hydrogen, as a renewable resource and the usage of fuel cells was once leading technology.

But think about using something that would otherwise be considered waste…. Something weird… YES using human waste as the alternate fuel to run a car! That would be a BACTERIAL CAR. The idea of a bacterial car came from NASA about six months ago. There is a particular type of bacteria that belongs to the Geobacteraceae family, feeds on, and can decompose, organic material. Geobacter metallireducens were first discovered in the muck of the Potomac River in 1987; they exist in environments where there's no oxygen and plenty of iron. They also have the unique ability to move electrons into metal. This means that under precise conditions, Geobacter metallireducens microbes can both process waste and generate electricity.

Let us go deep into the hydrogen fuel cell, and see what happens inside. The hydrogen is exposed to the anode. The anode i.e. the proton exchange membrane (PEM) allows only protons through it, not electrons and hence the electrons are split from the atom leaving protons (H+). On the opposite side of the cell, the cathode absorbs oxygen, which is abundantly available in nature. This produces a potential difference and causes the electrons to move through anode and then to the external circuit. This creates a current through the circuit, which runs the electric motor. As a result, the oxygen receives two electrons from the circuit and becomes negatively charged (O2-). Since, everything in this is in balanced nature, there are negatively charged oxygen ions on one side of the membrane and positively charged protons (H+) on the other side. Therefore, the bonding of the oxygen ion and the proton (H+) form water. This device is called a Proton Exchange Membrane fuel cell because it does not allow any electrons to pass through it.

Now let us compare this hydrogen fuel cell with a bacterial fuel cell. Each fiber would consist of three layers, like three thin sheets, one inside of another.

1. The anode (outer)
2. The Electrolyte-membrane (Middle)
3. The Cathode(Inner)

The slurry of treated liquefied waste would be pumped past the outer layers where Geobacter metallireducens (or other similar bacteria) can snatch electrons and shift them to the anode, into the circuit and to the motor, and then to the cathode.

The voltage required for the motor to run a car is between 96v to 192v. The Geobacter generates electricity according to the following equation:

C6H12O6+ 6 H2O 6 CO2+ 24 H++ 24 e-

And they found 2V of electricity was generated with a single electrode using Geobacter metallireducens. Thus by using almost 100 electrodes we are able to run a motor. And using this method exhaust from a car is minimal and it is totally environmental friendly.

By Jim Metzner:

According to Jim Metzner one of the scientists who discovered Geobacter metallireducens “We recovered some of the bottom sediments from the Potomac River, brought them back to the laboratory and placed them in a medium that contained some iron and selected for organisms that might be able to grow using iron instead of oxygen the way that most life forms grow.” And it was a great success. Thus we can multiply them as many times as we want to.

They can be recovered from any soil, anywhere where there's a lack of oxygen and abundance of ferric iron minerals, which is true for many soils. The bacteria thrive and they are actually the predominant organisms in those environments. Nobody had just ever looked for them before.”

So instead of breathing oxygen, Geobacter lives off iron! Thus this BACTERIAL CAR can be a gift to the human society. If this project succeeds then we can perhaps get electricity for our homes and fuel for our vehicles from sewage plants.

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