Microbial Fuel Cell?

- Y.E.P.

Yeast Electron Production

New generation of microbial fuel cells offering:

Reduced toxicity Low greenhouse gas emissions Easy recycling Wastewater as a "fuel" source Purification of wastewater while producing elecrtricity Long lasting power production

Toxicity

Batteries play a key role in people's everyday lifes: they power our phones, laptops, smartwatches, vacuum cleaners, cars, etc. Lithium-ion batteries currently dominate energy storage, but their production and disposal cause serious harm to ecosystems.

Microbial Fuel Cells (MFC) are much more environmentally-friendly. Production of required components does not damage the ecosystem.

Greenhouse gas emissions

Factory

Lithium mining and batteries production emits substantial amounts of greenhouse gases and consumes an enormous amount of freshwater, a critical resource for human survival.

Factory

MFC life cycle (from production and usage to recycling and disposal) produces significantly less carbon emissions compared to Li-ion batteries.

Recycling

Furthermore, the utilization of Li-ion batteries may pollute the environment. Taking into account that Li recycling remains very limited, the negative effects of Li-ion batteries may outweigh the positive impact, opening the door to searching for a better alternative.

MFC are mostly made from the components that are easily degradable or reusable, making MFCs much easier to recycle

Wastewater Purification
while Producing Energy

25% of Earth's population lives without access to clean water

~500,000 annual deaths due to exposure to untreated water

Up to 5% of the world's electricity is used to clean wastewater

This is where microbial fuel cells come into play. In MFCs, microorganisms oxidize organic compounds in wastewater. Simultaneously, they

  • clean the stream
  • generate electricity
  • save resources

previously used to treat wastewater. Altogether, MFCs offer a potentially eco-friendly solution.

MFCs harvest energy from a continuous waste supply, they can

sustain power generation over longer periods

and with a smaller carbon footprint than Li-ion in comparable applications.

In this project, we engineer yeast MFCs with enhanced electron storage and electron transfer capacity. We achieve that goal by elevating the Saccharomyces cerevisiae intracellular NADH pool and enhancing their extracellular electron transfer.

Engineered strains were tested in custom MFC hardware. To fully leverage the increased intracellular NADH levels, we propose the heterologous expression of fungal cellobiose dehydrogenase (CDH) on the yeast cell surface to enhance the cell’s ability to transfer electrons to electrodes.