What is a microbial battery?

Operation of the anode is like that of a MFC anode, but operation of the cathode is like that of a rechargeable battery. They therefore refer to this device as a microbial battery (MB). Fig. 2: Microbial battery energy recovery. The heights of the boxes indicate the energy percentages. (After Xie et al. )

Are multispecies microbial batteries a sustainable power supply?

Unlike typical batteries that stop generating power upon the depletion of the internally stored chemical fuel, multispecies microbial batteries can serve as a long-lasting, self-sustainable power supply through their cooperative metabolic interactions [ 21 ].

What is a microfabricable and scalable biobattery?

We create a microfabricable and scalable biobattery that includes a microbial consortium. A layer-by-layer biofabrication forms a thick, conductive, microbial consortium structure. Multiple biobattery modules can be connected with a plug-and-play capability.

What is a battery-type microbial energy harvester?

A plug-and-play modular biobattery platform Battery-type microbial energy harvester without the need for replenishment of the microbial food simplifies device design, fabrication, and operation because it does not require a complex, energy-intensive fluidic feeding system [ 11 ].

How can a modular biobattery form a microbial consortium?

Here, we created a plug-and-play modular biobattery platform that can form a defined microbial consortium systematically, precisely and quickly by electropolymerizing individual microbial layers while the individual modular batteries can be simply connected in series, parallel, and hybrid stacks to achieve the desired power performance ( Fig. 1 ).

How does microbial photosynthesis influence the power generation and self-sustainability of biobattery?

This indicates that microbial photosynthesis has a significant influence on the power generation and the self-sustainability of the biobattery by producing organic fuels and other molecules for the other co-cultures below.