A mini-microbial fuel cell for voltage testing of exoelectrogenic bacteria

Current methods for testing the electricity generation capacity of isolates are time- and labor-consuming. This paper presents a rapid voltage testing system of exoelectrogenic bacteria called Quickscreen, which is based on a microliter microbial fuel cell (MFC). Geobacter sulfurreducens and Shewanella baltica were used as the model exoelectrogenic bacteria; Escherichia coli that cannot generate electricity was used as a negative control. It was found that the electricity generation capacity of the isolates could be determined within about five hours by using Quickscreen, and that its time was relatively rapid compared with the time needed by using larger MFCs. A parallel, stable, and low background voltage was achieved using titanium as a current collector in the blank run. The external resistance had little impact on the blank run during the initial period. The cathode with a five-hole configuration, used to hydrate the carbon cathode, gave higher cathode potential than that with a one-hole configuration. Steady discharge and current interrupt methods showed that the anode mostly contributed to the large internal resistance of the Quickscreen system. However, the addition of graphite felt decreased the resistance from 18 to 5 kΩ. This device was proved to be useful to rapidly evaluate the electricity generation capacity of different bacteria.