Interdisciplinary team creates 'microbial battery' driven by
naturally occurring bacteria that evolved to produce electricity as they digest
organic material.
Engineers at Stanford University have devised a new way to
generate electricity from sewage using naturally-occurring “wired microbes” as
mini power plants, producing electricity as they digest plant and animal waste.
In a paper published today in the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences, co-authors Yi Cui, a materials scientist, Craig
Criddle, an environmental engineer, and Xing Xie, an interdisciplinary fellow,
call their invention a microbial battery.
One day they hope it will be used in places such as sewage
treatment plants, or to break down organic pollutants in the “dead zones” of
lakes and coastal waters where fertilizer runoff and other organic waste can
deplete oxygen levels and suffocate marine life.