SMFCs are a bioelectricity production technology for low power applications. Recent advances in SMFCs are investigated to enhance their performance. Power improvement and organic matter reduction in SMFCs enlarge their range of applications.
Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) harness the natural metabolisms of microbes to produce electrical power from almost any kind of organic matter. In addition to the low power densities (about 1mW for a 1-liter reactor), MFCs are presently built with expensive membrane and electrodes. The payback time of MFCs is therefore very long (evaluated to 25000 years for our lab prototype). Progresses in designing low-cost MFCs are necessary before conceiving large scale energy production.
Ultra-low-power energy harvester for microbial fuel cells and its application to environmental sensing and long-range wireless data transmission