Efficient energy harvester for microbial fuel cells using DC/DC converters

The emergence of modern technologies, such as Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), the Internet-of-Things (IoT), and Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications, involves the use of batteries, which pose a serious environmental risk, with billions of batteries disposed of every year. However, the combination of sensors and wireless communication devices is extremely power-hungry. Energy Harvesting (EH) is fundamental in enabling the use of low-power electronic devices that derive their energy from external sources, such as Microbial Fuel Cells (MFC), solar power, thermal and kinetic energy, among others. Plant Microbial Fuel Cell (PMFC) is a prominent clean energy source and a step towards the development of self-powered systems in indoor and outdoor environments. One of the main challenges with PMFCs is the dynamic power supply, dynamic charging rates and low-energy supply. In this paper, a PMFC-based energy harvester system is proposed for the implementation of autonomous self-powered sensor nodes with IoT and cloud-based service communication protocols. The PMFC design is specifically adapted with the proposed EH circuit for the implementation of IoT-WSN based applications. The PMFC-EH system has a maximum power point at 0.71 V, a current density of 5 mA cm − 2 , and a power density of 3.5 mW cm − 2 with a single plant. Considering a sensor node with a current consumption of 0.35 mA, the PMFC-EH green energy system allows a power autonomy for real-time data processing of IoT-based low-power WSN systems.

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Low-power energy harvester from constructed wetland-microbial fuel cells for initiating a self-sustainable treatment process

Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments ◽

10.1016/j.seta.2021.101282 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 46 ◽

pp. 101282

Author(s):

Pratiksha Srivastava ◽

Andrew Belford ◽

Rouzbeh Abbassi ◽

Mohsen Asadnia ◽

Vikram Garaniya ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Fuel Cells ◽

Low Power ◽

Constructed Wetland ◽

Microbial Fuel Cells ◽

Treatment Process ◽

Energy Harvester ◽

Sustainable Treatment

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High voltage generation from wastewater by microbial fuel cells equipped with a newly designed low voltage booster multiplier (LVBM)

Scientific Reports ◽

10.1038/s41598-020-75916-7 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 10 (1) ◽

Author(s):

N’Dah Joel Koffi ◽

Satoshi Okabe

Keyword(s):

Renewable Energy ◽

Fuel Cells ◽

High Voltage ◽

Microbial Fuel Cells ◽

Energy Harvester ◽

Low Voltage ◽

Harvesting Efficiency ◽

Voltage Generation ◽

Energy Harvesting Efficiency ◽

And Storage

Abstract Although microbial fuel cells (MFCs) can produce renewable energy from wastewater, the generated power is practically unusable. To extract usable power from an MFC fed with wastewater, we newly developed a low voltage booster multiplier (LVBM), which is composed of a self-oscillating LVB and multistage voltage multiplier circuits (VMCs). The low output MFC voltage (ca. 0.4 V) was successfully boosted up to 99 ± 2 V, which was the highest voltage that has been ever reported, without voltage reversal by connecting an LVB with 20-stage VMCs. Moreover, the boosted voltage (81 ± 1 V) was stably maintained for > 40 h even after disconnecting the LVBM from the MFC. The energy harvesting efficiency of LVBM was > 80% when an LVB with 4-stage VMCs was charged to 9.3 V. These results clearly suggest that the proposed LVBM system is an efficient and self-starting energy harvester and storage for low-power generating MFCs.

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