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Silver nanoparticles boost charge-extraction efficiency in Shewanella microbial fuel cells

Bocheng Cao,Zipeng Zhao,Lele Peng,Hui-Ying Shiu,Mengning Ding,F. Song,Xun Guan,Calvin K. Lee,Jin Huang,D. Zhu,Xiaoyang Fu,Gerard C. L. Wong,Chong Liu,K. Nealson,Paul S. Weiss,X. Duan,Yu Huang

Published 2021 in Science

ABSTRACT

Description Silver in the linings The bacterium Shewanella oneidensis is well known to use extracellular electron sinks, metal oxides and ions in nature or electrodes when cultured in a fuel cell, to power the catabolism of organic material. However, the power density of microbial fuel cells has been limited by various factors that are mostly related to connecting the microbes to the anode. Cao et al. found that a reduced graphene oxide–silver nanoparticle anode circumvents some of these issues, providing a substantial increase in current and power density (see the Perspective by Gaffney and Minteer). Electron microscopy revealed silver nanoparticles embedded or attached to the outer cell membrane, possibly facilitating electron transfer from internal electron carriers to the anode. —MAF A silver nanoparticle anode greatly boosts the performance of Shewanella biofilm–based microbial fuel cells. Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) can directly convert the chemical energy stored in organic matter to electricity and are of considerable interest for power generation and wastewater treatment. However, the current MFCs typically exhibit unsatisfactorily low power densities that are largely limited by the sluggish transmembrane and extracellular electron-transfer processes. Here, we report a rational strategy to boost the charge-extraction efficiency in Shewanella MFCs substantially by introducing transmembrane and outer-membrane silver nanoparticles. The resulting Shewanella-silver MFCs deliver a maximum current density of 3.85 milliamperes per square centimeter, power density of 0.66 milliwatts per square centimeter, and single-cell turnover frequency of 8.6 × 105 per second, which are all considerably higher than those of the best MFCs reported to date. Additionally, the hybrid MFCs feature an excellent fuel-utilization efficiency, with a coulombic efficiency of 81%.

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