Zülal Muganlı, İsmail Bütün, Ghazaleh Gharib and Ali Koşar
{"title":"Electricity generation using a microbial 3D bio-anode embedded bio-photovoltaic cell in a microfluidic chamber†","authors":"Zülal Muganlı, İsmail Bütün, Ghazaleh Gharib and Ali Koşar","doi":"10.1039/D4YA00278D","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p >New-generation sustainable energy systems serve as major tools to mitigate the greenhouse gas emissions and effects of climate change. Biophotovoltaics (BPVs) presents an eco-friendly approach by employing solar energy to ensure self-sustainable bioelectricity. In contrast to other microbial fuel cells (MFCs), carbon feedstock is not essential for generating electricity with BPVs. However, the low power outputs (μW cm<small><sup>−2</sup></small>) obtained from the current systems limit their practical applications. In this study, a new generation polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) based BPV cell unit was developed with a 3D hydrogel scaffold-based bio-anode to enable microbial biofilm formation for substantial electron capture and extracellular electron transfer. Moreover, the fabricated device was supported using an air-cathode electrode to elevate the gas exchange, thereby enabling optimum photosynthesis. <em>Synechocystis</em> sp. PCC 6803 seeded the 3D bio-anode embedded BPV cell, whose electrical characteristics were analyzed under the illumination of white light as day/night cycles with continuous feeding by the microchannel. For the first five days, the results indicated that the maximum power densities were 0.0534 W m<small><sup>−2</sup></small> for dark hours and 0.03911 W m<small><sup>−2</sup></small> for light hours without causing any effect on the cellular morphology of the cyanobacteria. As a result, the developed hydrogel scaffold-based bio-anode embedded BPV cell led to higher power densities <em>via</em> enabling a simple, self-sustainable, biocompatible, and eco-friendly energy harvesting platform with a possible capability in the applications of power lab-on-a-chip (LOC), point-of-care (POC), and small-scale portable electronic devices.</p>","PeriodicalId":72913,"journal":{"name":"Energy advances","volume":" 10","pages":" 2439-2452"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2000,"publicationDate":"2024-09-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlepdf/2024/ya/d4ya00278d?page=search","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Energy advances","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2024/ya/d4ya00278d","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"CHEMISTRY, PHYSICAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
New-generation sustainable energy systems serve as major tools to mitigate the greenhouse gas emissions and effects of climate change. Biophotovoltaics (BPVs) presents an eco-friendly approach by employing solar energy to ensure self-sustainable bioelectricity. In contrast to other microbial fuel cells (MFCs), carbon feedstock is not essential for generating electricity with BPVs. However, the low power outputs (μW cm−2) obtained from the current systems limit their practical applications. In this study, a new generation polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) based BPV cell unit was developed with a 3D hydrogel scaffold-based bio-anode to enable microbial biofilm formation for substantial electron capture and extracellular electron transfer. Moreover, the fabricated device was supported using an air-cathode electrode to elevate the gas exchange, thereby enabling optimum photosynthesis. Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 seeded the 3D bio-anode embedded BPV cell, whose electrical characteristics were analyzed under the illumination of white light as day/night cycles with continuous feeding by the microchannel. For the first five days, the results indicated that the maximum power densities were 0.0534 W m−2 for dark hours and 0.03911 W m−2 for light hours without causing any effect on the cellular morphology of the cyanobacteria. As a result, the developed hydrogel scaffold-based bio-anode embedded BPV cell led to higher power densities via enabling a simple, self-sustainable, biocompatible, and eco-friendly energy harvesting platform with a possible capability in the applications of power lab-on-a-chip (LOC), point-of-care (POC), and small-scale portable electronic devices.