Lake Sediment Microbial Fuel Cell Generate Electricity and Power Wireless Sensor

Abstract

Sediment microbial fuel cells (SMFCs) can generate electricity without maintenance in the field. SMFC is considered as an alternative renewable and sustainable power source. Though the SMFC is very appealing energy source, it presents certain challenges for real applications. Its output voltage and current are very low and its output voltage cant be increased by stacking several SMFCs in series in an open water body such as the lake. In this research, we construct and simulate a field SMFC with sediment from Xuanwu Lake in Nanjing, China. Open-circuit voltage of the SMFC is 750 mV and the maximal power density is 7.8 mW/m2. A custom-designed power management system (PMS) is developed to harvest energy from SMFC and boost the output power that can drive a wireless sensor. With the PMS, wireless sensor can utilize the harvested energy from SMFC and transmit data to computer without additional power source.