Call for Abstracts
Microbial Fuel Cells Symposium
The first international MFC symposium will include invited and contributed talks and posters on different aspects of MFCs, including but not limited to:
system architecture power densities innovative materials exoelectrogenic bacteria and genomics electrochemistry and analysis reactor stability and efficiency biohydrogen productionTechnical abstracts are solicited for platform or poster presentation. To be considered for a presentation, please submit an abstract by the submission deadline of February 23, 2008, via e-mail to Dr. Jay Regan (jregan@engr.psu.edu). Submissions should include the presentation title (bold letters), the presenter (underlined) and co-authors, including a contact name and e-mail address, and a short abstract of no more than 250 words (Arial 10-point font; see sample abstract for formatting consistency). Indicate in the e-mail message whether the submission should be considered for platform and/or poster presentation. Submissions will be reviewed by the organizing committee, and authors will be informed of the outcome by the middle of March.
Sample Abstract
Influence of reactor operation on community diversity and system performance in cellulose-fed microbial fuel cells
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA. E-mail: jregan@engr.psu.edu
As the most abundant polymer on earth and a significant fraction of certain waste streams, cellulose is an attractive, renewable feedstock for energy production. Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) can be used to extract this energy from cellulose for direct electricity production or hydrogen generation. However, cellulose conversion in an MFC presents some interesting ecological challenges: it requires the use of an insoluble electron donor and acceptor, there are no known microbes capable of both cellulose hydrolysis and anode reduction, and cellulose hydrolysis kinetics are considerably slower than substrates more commonly used in MFCs. These constraints introduce operational considerations that must be addressed to achieve efficient conversion. Using insoluble MN301 cellulose and a binary culture composed of Clostridium cellulolyticum and the exoelectrogenic Geobacter sulfurreducens, fluorescent in situ hybridization and real-time polymerase chain reaction analyses showed that anode biofilms were dominated by G. sulfurreducens, while C. cellulolyticum was more abundant in suspension. However, when soluble carboxymethylcellulose was used, both microbes cohabitated the anode. Subsequently, MFCs were operated as sequencing batch reactors with settling and supernatant decant to enhance the retention of cellulose degraders. There was little change observed in the performance of the defined binary culture. However, in undefined mixed-culture experiments with MN301, solids retention significantly impaired the performance relative to a system with complete replacement of the anode chamber contents with each batch. Chemical characterization and molecular examination of these communities is underway to determine the fate of cellulose products in these systems.
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