title: Water Quality Monitoring in Developing Countries; Can Microbial Fuel Cells be the Answer?
abstract: The provision of safe water and adequate sanitation in developing countries is a must. A range of chemical and biological methods are currently used to ensure the safety of water for consumption. These methods however suffer from high costs, complexity of use and inability to function onsite and in real time. The microbial fuel cell (MFC) technology has great potential for the rapid and simple testing of the quality of water sources. MFCs have the advantages of high simplicity and possibility for onsite and real time monitoring. Depending on the choice of manufacturing materials, this technology can also be highly cost effective. This review covers the state-of-the-art research on MFC sensors for water quality monitoring, and explores enabling factors for their use in developing countries.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Sustainable Chemical Technologies, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, UK. J.Chouler@bath.ac.uk.|Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, UK. J.Chouler@bath.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Jon
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Chouler
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, UK. M.Di.Lorenzo@bath.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Mirella
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Di Lorenzo
mesh_terms: D001674:Bioelectric Energy Sources; D015374:Biosensing Techniques; D003906:Developing Countries; D005618:Fresh Water / Q000032:analysis / Q000737:chemistry; D006801:Humans; D014871:Water Microbiology; D060753:Water Quality / Q000592:standards*
keywords: BOD; microbial fuel cell; microbial sensors; toxicant