Abstract
Microbial resource mining of electroactive microorganism (EAM) is currently methodically hampered due to unavailable electrochemical screening tools. Here, we introduce an electrochemical microwell plate (ec-MP) composed of a 96 electrochemical deepwell plate and a recently developed 96-channel multipotentiostat. Using the ec-MP we investigated the electrochemical and metabolic properties of the EAM models Shewanella oneidensis and Geobacter sulfurreducens with acetate and lactate as electron donor combined with an individual genetic analysis of each well. Electrochemical cultivation of pure cultures achieved maximum current densities (j max) and coulombic efficiencies (CE) that were well in line with literature data. The co-cultivation of S. oneidensis and G. sulfurreducens led to an increased current density of j max of 88.57 ± 14.04 µA cm−2 (lactate) and j max of 99.36 ± 19.12 µA cm−2 (lactate and acetate). Further, a decreased time period of reaching j max and biphasic current production was revealed and the microbial electrochemical performance could be linked to the shift in the relative abundance.
Highlights
Microbial electrochemical technologies (MET) are an upcoming platform allowing the coupling of microbial and electrochemical conversions (Schröder et al, 2015)
The metabolism of electroactive microorganisms (EAM) is linked to Faradaic current flow at electrodes (Schröder et al, 2015) via extracellular electron transfer (EET)
Cultivation was conducted at 0.4 V vs. standard hydrogen electrode (SHE)
Summary
Microbial electrochemical technologies (MET) are an upcoming platform allowing the coupling of microbial and electrochemical conversions (Schröder et al, 2015). The foundation of primary MET are electroactive microorganisms (EAM) (Logan 2009). The microbial electrochemical conversion of microbial metabolites that are the starting materials or substrates from a technical point of view can be achieved. These conversions are redox reactions and include reductions at the cathode as well as oxidations at the anode. As primary MET facilitate reactions at electrodes that cannot be achieved without EAM, these can be denominated as microbial electrocatalysts
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