Abstract
Microbial growth is an exothermic process. Biotechnological industries produce large amounts of heat, usually considered an undesirable by-product. In this work, we report the construction and characterization of the first microbial thermoelectric cell (MTC), in which the metabolic heat produced by a thermally insulated microbial culture is partially converted into electricity through a thermoelectric device optimized for low ΔT values. A temperature of 41°C and net electric voltage of around 250–600 mV was achieved with 1.7 L baker’s yeast culture. This is the first time microbial metabolic energy has been converted into electricity with an ad hoc thermoelectric device. These results might contribute towards developing a novel strategy to harvest excess heat in the biotechnology industry, in processes such as ethanol fermentation, auto thermal aerobic digestion (ATAD) or bioremediation, which could be coupled with MTCs in a single unit to produce electricity as a valuable by-product of the primary biotechnological product. Additionally, we propose that small portable MTCs could be conceived and inoculated with suitable thermophilic of hyperthermophilic starter cultures and used for powering small electric devices.
Highlights
Both developed and fast growing developing countries exhibit steadily growing energy demands
We report the characterization of the first Microbial Thermoelectric Cell, a bioreactor designed for power production through a completely different mechanism than that operating in Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC): the thermoelectric effect
Resistance of microbial thermoelectric cell (MTC) In order to characterize the thermal evolution of the MTC prior to the experiments with yeast cultures, an identification assay for m?Cp and Rg was set up as described in 2.4
Summary
Both developed and fast growing developing countries exhibit steadily growing energy demands. Taking into account the limited nature of oil, coal and gas reservoirs, this could obviously lead to a shortage of standard (fossil) fuels in the relatively near future. It is widely accepted that massive fossil fuel consumption, which results in the production of nine billion metric tons of atmospheric carbon per year [3], is at least partially responsible for current global warming. Biomass-based energy has been suggested as one of the most promising technologies for renewable energy production [4,5]. Biomass from crops; urban, industrial or agricultural wastes; green algae, cyanobacteria or other microbial cultures, are renewable organic resources that are suitable for energy production in the form of biofuels (mainly, but not limited to, bioethanol and biodiesel), and electricity
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