Electrochemical response of Saccharomyces cerevisiae with stainless steel and carbon fiber electrodes

Abstract

Abstract Microbial fuel cell is an emerging technology, which converts energy of organic substances into electricity. Exoelectrogenic microorganisms have the potential to be used in microbial fuel cell. Most of the fuel cells involve bacteria as electrogens. Nevertheless, limited investigations are done to explore the yeast’s electrogenic capability. Accordingly, this study has been designed to examine the comparative power generation capabilities of Saccharomyces cerevisiae with two different setups. This study depicts the major effect of electrodes on the electrochemical behavior of fuel cell. Electrogenic potentials of these organisms are checked separately as well as in combination in single chambered fuel cells setup. In this study, comparative electrochemical response had been measured with stainless steel and carbon cloth as cathode. Microbial fuel cell efficiency has been compared in terms of open circuit voltage and polarization curve. The yeast fuel cells showed power generation in the all the experimental conditions. Maximum open circuit voltages (OCVs) of Baker’s Yeast with stainless steel as cathode were measured 0.432 ± 0.005 V while 0.133 ± 0.005 V with the single chambered setup. These results indicate that cathode of stainless steel is more efficient than carbon cloth in power generation. The fuel cell of conventional yeast i.e. Saccharomyces cerevisiae generate electricity with the carbon cloth as anode and stainless steel as cathode under microaerophilic conditions. The outcomes may be useful for developing better fuel cell technologies for effective power generation with yeast and different materials.