title: Possibilities for extremophilic microorganisms in microbial electrochemical systems.
abstract: Microbial electrochemical systems exploit the metabolism of microorganisms to generate electrical energy or a useful product. In the past couple of decades, the application of microbial electrochemical systems has increased from the use of wastewaters to produce electricity to a versatile technology that can use numerous sources for the extraction of electrons on the one hand, while on the other hand these electrons can be used to serve an ever increasing number of functions. Extremophilic microorganisms grow in environments that are hostile to most forms of life and their utilization in microbial electrochemical systems has opened new possibilities to oxidize substrates in the anode and produce novel products in the cathode. For example, extremophiles can be used to oxidize sulfur compounds in acidic pH to remediate wastewaters, generate electrical energy from marine sediment microbial fuel cells at low temperatures, desalinate wastewaters and act as biosensors of low amounts of organic carbon. In this review, we will discuss the recent advances that have been made in using microbial catalysts under extreme conditions and show possible new routes that extremophilic microorganisms open for microbial electrochemical systems.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Ecology and Evolution in Microbial Model Systems (EEMiS), Linnaeus University, SE-391 82 Kalmar, Sweden mark.dopson@lnu.se.
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dopson
authors.affiliation: Centre for Ecology and Evolution in Microbial Model Systems (EEMiS), Linnaeus University, SE-391 82 Kalmar, Sweden.
authors.forename: Gaofeng
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Ni
authors.affiliation: Wetsus, European Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Water Technology, 8911 MA Leeuwarden, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Tom H J A
authors.initials: TH
authors.lastname: Sleutels
mesh_terms: D018407:Bacterial Physiological Phenomena; D004563:Electrochemistry; D004783:Environmental Microbiology; D006863:Hydrogen-Ion Concentration; D007218:Industrial Microbiology / Q000639:trends; D010084:Oxidation-Reduction
keywords: MEC; MFC; anode-respiring bacteria; bioanode; bioelectrochemical systems; electricity generation; extremophiles; microbial electrolysis cells; microbial fuel cells