title: Archaea-based microbial fuel cell operating at high ionic strength conditions.
abstract: In this work, two archaea microorganisms (Haloferax volcanii and Natrialba magadii) used as biocatalyst at a microbial fuel cell (MFC) anode were evaluated. Both archaea are able to grow at high salt concentrations. By increasing the media conductivity, the internal resistance was diminished, improving the MFC's performance. Without any added redox mediator, maximum power (P                         (max)) and current at P                         (max) were 11.87/4.57/0.12 μW cm(-2) and 49.67/22.03/0.59 μA cm(-2) for H. volcanii, N. magadii and E. coli, respectively. When neutral red was used as the redox mediator, P                         (max) was 50.98 and 5.39 μW cm(-2) for H. volcanii and N. magadii, respectively. In this paper, an archaea MFC is described and compared with other MFC systems; the high salt concentration assayed here, comparable with that used in Pt-catalyzed alkaline hydrogen fuel cells, will open new options when MFC scaling up is the objective necessary for practical applications.
authors: Instituto de Astronomía y Física del Espacio (IAFE), University of Buenos Aires-CONICET, Ciudad Universitaria, Argentina.
authors: Ximena C
authors: XC
authors: Abrevaya
authors: Natalia
authors: N
authors: Sacco
authors: Pablo J D
authors: PJ
authors: Mauas
authors: Eduardo
authors: E
authors: Cortón
mesh_terms: D001105:Archaea / Q000254:growth & development* / Q000378:metabolism; D001674:Bioelectric Energy Sources; D004563:Electrochemistry; D004566:Electrodes; D009994:Osmolar Concentration