title: A microfluidic microbial fuel cell fabricated by soft lithography.
abstract: Here we report a new microfluidic microbial fuel cell (MFC) platform built by soft-lithography techniques. The MFC design includes a unique sub-5 μL polydimethylsiloxane soft chamber featuring carbon cloth electrodes and microfluidic delivery of electrolytes. Bioelectricity was generated using Shewanella oneidensis MR-1 cultivated on either complex organic substrates or lactate-based minimal medium. These micro-MFCs exhibited fast start-ups, reproducible current generation, and enhanced power densities up to 62.5 W m(-3) that represents the best result for sub-100 μL MFCs. Systematic comparisons of custom-made MFC reactors having different chamber sizes indicate volumetric power density is inversely correlated with chamber size in our systems: i.e., the smaller the chamber, the higher the power density is achieved.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA. fqian@lifesci.ucsb.edu
authors.forename: Fang
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Qian
authors.forename: Zhen
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: He
authors.forename: Michael P
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Thelen
authors.forename: Yat
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Li
mesh_terms: D001674:Bioelectric Energy Sources; D004129:Dimethylpolysiloxanes; D044085:Microfluidics
chemical_list: D004129:Dimethylpolysiloxanes; C013830:baysilon