Does it have to be carbon? Metal anodes in microbial fuel cells and related bioelectrochemical systems

By A. Baudler, I. Schmidt, M. Langner, A. Greiner, U. Schröder. 2015

297 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Copper and silver are antimicrobial metals, on whose surface bacteria do not grow. As our paper demonstrates, this commonly reported antimicrobial property does not apply to electrochemically active, electrode respiring bacteria. These bacteria readily colonize the surface of these metals, forming a highly active biofilm. Average anodic current densities of 1.1 mA cm−2 (silver) and 1.5 mA cm−2 (copper) are achieved – data that are comparable to that of the benchmark material, graphite (1.0 mA cm−2). Beside the above metals, nickel, cobalt, titanium and stainless steel (SUS 304) were systematically studied towards their suitability as anode materials for microbial fuel cells and related bioelectrochemical systems. The bioelectrochemical data are put in relation to physical data of the materials (specific conductivity, standard potential) and to basic economic considerations. It is concluded that especially copper represents a highly promising anode material, suitable for application in high-performance bioelectrochemical systems.

Subfields: Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Electrochemistry, Environmental Engineering

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/9187d31bd918e2df8d686c50830e9408b83f6ce6

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In Electrical and Electronic Engineering

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Citations in the corpus

• Microbial fuel cells: An overview of current technology (2019, background): “23 average maximum current densities demonstrated that of the three most noble metals, copper produced the highest maximum current density (1515 μA cm), followed by gold (1175 μA cm) and silver (1119 μA cm), which were slightly higher than that of the graphite control (984 μA cm) [189].”