WIRED Staff
Science

Slideshow: Microbes Pass Valuable Gas

Many tout fuel cells as the answer to our energy woes, but capturing hydrogen gas requires great amounts of electricity. So scientists are tinkering with microorganisms, from common yeast to ocean-dwelling bacteria, to come up with a reliable power source. By Roxanne Khamsi.
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Another approach to microbial fuel cells takes the technology to new depths. Leonard Tender, who leads a team at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., and Oregon State University professor Clare Reimers have co-invented a device that draws on the electron-rich environment created by microorganisms in ocean sediment.Clare Reimers

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A prototype fuel cell from Liwei Lin's lab that is being developed and improved for eventual medical application. Lin plans to adapt his prototype to use glucose found in the bloodstream to power implantable devices such as internal pacemakers.

Liwei Lin
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Over millennia, microbes in undisturbed ocean mud digest dead organisms such as phytoplankton and then unload electrons onto surrounding chemicals. The fuel cell designed by Tender and Reimers employs two connected graphite disk electrodes (one placed in the sea-bottom muck and another in the water above) to generate a current by carrying these electrons up and away from the sediment.

Clare Reimers