Understanding the proliferation of bacteria across anode surfaces in microbial fuel cells (MFCs)
Hannah Bird, Ben Allen, Sharon B Velasquez-Orta, Elizabeth Heidrich · 2025
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Description
Microbial fuel cells clean wastewater while making a trickle of power, and their output depends on the living film that coats the anode. Hannah Bird, Ben Allen, Sharon Velasquez-Orta, and Elizabeth Heidrich mapped how that film spreads in 2025 using a many-electrode cell fed with either a simple or a starchy food. Seeding a few electrodes directly started current within about five days; scattering the seed through the tank failed entirely.
Electrodes stacked above seeded ones colonized fastest, and the starch-fed cell spread its film wider and quicker. Over time the communities narrowed to specialists, the first dominant genus giving ground. Oddly, unseeded electrodes often beat the seeded ones in output, before long-term power faded in both.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Hannah Bird, Ben Allen, Sharon B Velasquez-Orta, Elizabeth Heidrich |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2025 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 56 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |