DIY Living Computer Battery

An anonymous reader writes "Talk about a living battery/pollution clean up/environmentally friendly battery, this seems to fit all the buzz words. Researchers at UMass reported in the journal Science about their sediment battery. 'Derek R. Lovley, UMass microbiologist and team leader, explained how the team used water and sediment from Boston Harbor, a collection of mason jars, ordinary electrical wiring and sterile graphite electrodes to determine the science behind the mechanics of a simple, sediment battery. Using Desulfuromonas acetoxidans (a Geobacter bacteria) the researchers were able to produce enough electrical current to power a lightbulb or a simple computer.'" The linked article is low on details - post 'em in the comments if you have more information on related projects.

Comments

The possibilities

[Torgo's Pizza]

So now I can water cool my overclocked processor *and* power it from the creek near my house? Time to buy some garden hose extensions and some more power cables!

Re:The possibilities

[Simon Field]

The creek near your house might be better put to use as a hydroelectric generator.

Biological fuel cells have been around for a long time. The ones we built in high school used yeast.

Here is more information on Desulfuromonas acetoxidans. You can buy pure cultures here.

An article with more information (didn't Hemos ask?) is here.

Boston Harbor Sediment

[CaptainStormfield]

Of course, not all sediment has as many, ahem, "nutrients" as Boston Harbor sediment. . .

Do you still have to get a hepatitis shot if you fall in the harbor?

Living Battery?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did I just take the red pill?!

Take the blue pill Neo

[Deanasc]

So this is the first step in turning us all in to batteries?

Re:Take the blue pill Neo

[Anonymous Coward]

That cable is no way going near my anal port dude.

An example of how

[Gortbusters.org]

the Ocean area is under utilized. It is more than just a dumping ground for waste, and more than just a source of fancy foods. Maybe the recently reported new plane-like submarines will help us explore and find better ways of energy.

Ye gods.

[Anonymous Coward]

I can already imagine activists shouting: Free the Batteries!

New gardening tip...

[Alcohol Fueled]

Remember, be sure to water your computer battery at least twice a day.

Re:New gardening tip...

[nns6561]

You joke, but many modern, lead-acid batteries require watering. For example, the large batteries used on forklifts currently require watering about once a week.

Who needs oil?

[after5]

Great, the Cuyahoga River (Cleveland) catches fire and Boston Harbor sediment can produce power. How does this look good for American water supplies, again?

I'm just waiting

[greechneb]

I can't wait till they can use methane gas from bathrooms to power computers. It will kill two birds with one stone -

1 - cheap power from reusable sources (humans digestive systems)

2 - intake fans in bathroom will help with gas odors left in bathroom

Re:I'm just waiting

[ThundaGaiden]

I can see computer users getting a bad stigma from
this one , just imagine sitting at your pc and
having to flatulate every 5 minutes to keep it
going , don't think you'd be able to get many
friends into the computer room.

And it might introduce a new breed social disorders
including powering the computer when you aren't even near one :)

Re:I'm just waiting

[bellers]

Yeah, then you can say that you power your PC with clean, natural profane gas.

Boston Harbor eh?

[phrantic]

I've got stuff living in my sock drawer that must be good for a decent size battery in the mega-Ah range I would say.

Oh No

[YH]

The ASPCB will be up in arms!!

Article info

[danimrich]

This is the corresponding article in Science:

Electrode-Reducing Microorganisms That Harvest Energy from Marine Sediments
Daniel R. Bond, Dawn E. Holmes, Leonard M. Tender, and Derek R. Lovley
Science 2002 January 18; 295: 483-485. (in Reports)

Re:Article info

[br0ck]

Here is the full text of the Science article in PDF format. Use Google to parse this into HTML.

And the second step is fusion?

[machine of god]

"To cover itself, the movie throws in a quick mention that the human energy source powering the machines is combined with a source of fusion. This is like getting on a 747 and having the captain explain in great detail that the plane is rubber band powered, then add that it also has four jet engines."

It was here. I dunno. Just made me think of that.

More information on microbial power plants

[juushin]

As far as more information on Lovley's study, there aren't many details floating around. The article still hasn't appeared in print in Science (possibly this week). I did find some press releases from UMass that shed a bit more light on their work:

http://www.umass.edu/newsoffice/archive/2002/01170 2electrodes.html

http://www.umass.edu/newsoffice/archive/2002/11130 2harbor.htm

Ah! That explains everything!

[Chocolate Teapot]

Using Desulfuromonas acetoxidans (a Geobacter bacteria) the researchers were able to produce enough electrical current to power a lightbulb or a simple computer.

That's why nerds never wash. They're not unhygenic, just extremely overclocked.

Original paper published January 2002...

[Olinator]

...And entitled "Harnessing Microbially Generated Power on the Seafloor" can be found in PDF format at http://zdna.micro.umass.edu/publications/12091916. pdf. The basic idea is to use geobacter organisms (which occur naturally in various places, such as the mud on the bottom of Boston harbor) to generate electricity, by giving them a graphite anode to colonize.

Ole

Hands up

[Chocolate Teapot]

..all those who use their armpits as a UPS. On second thoughts, keep them down.

Modern "Potato Clock"

[Suydam]

This seems vaguely reminiscent of the potato clock I had when I was a kid.

You stuck potatoes (or fruit) in plastic cups, hooked up some wires to them and *wallah* you had your own LCD clock running just fine.

Re:Modern "Potato Clock"

[4ginandtonics]

There's a bit of a bonus with the potato clock, you know. You can use the byproduct to run your new hydrogen fueled car:

From http://www.quantumscientific.com/pclock.html

The potato contains phosphoric acid. This acid causes chemical reactions to occur at each of the electrodes (galvanized nail and copper penny). The reaction at the copper electrode strips electrons from the copper and attaches them to the Hydrogen ions (2H+) in the phosphoric acid. This depletes the electrons on the copper electrode which makes it "hungry" for more. The process creates Hydrogen gas.

Ok, well, maybe you would really really big potato battery, or a really really tiny car...

Note to myself

[ConsoleDeamon]

dont forget to feed the battery.

Details, details, details

[kowaikawaii]

Details...

They've actually put two of these things up in field sites, and it works well in both polluted (Tuckerton, NJ) and unpolluted (Newport, OR) areas. The energy it's harvesting is from the difference between the oxidizing environment we live in and the reducing environment in which sediment bacteria turn organic matter into methane (and no, the methane can't be effectively harvested.)

The good news is that the power supply was very steady over 3 months. The bad news is that the power so low as to be useless - it averaged at 28 MILLIwatts per square meter. The area needing to be covered in order to run a lightbulb is left as an exercise for the reader, but the answer's big. They're currently thinking this might be a good way to power long-term monitoring devices deployed in the middle of the ocean and other distant places, but as a practical power source - go get a photovoltaic!

Why?

[ottffssent]

While I appreciate that science for its own sake isn't entirely a waste of time, money, talent, etc. I can't help but wonder what posessed these people to study such a thing. As an energy source, I'm forced to wonder what the point is. I mean, the effort that went into this could (imho) have been better spent designing robot-serviceable PV panel arrays and/or securing funding to start building. Granted, there's the problem of energy distribution, and room-temp superconductors are still way too expensive, but that shouldn't stop someone from working on the production side.

I suspect the R&D effort would be pretty minimal and the biggest hurdle would be funding. Starting a solar power plant is really expensive, but it should be pretty low-risk and high-profit since ongoing expenses would be virtually nil (repairs, and a few people to monitor things). Can someone more knowledgeable about the industry explain to me why nobody has paved over a few square miles of Nevada desert with solar panels yet?

Re:Why?

[Simon Field]

A quote from this article:

Lovley's group also has found that some Geobacters can convert toxic organic compounds, such as toluene, to electricity. Lovley says this suggests that some Geobacters can be used to harvest energy from waste matter, or can be included in technology used to clean up subsurface environments contaminated by organic matter, especially petroleum. Earlier studies had shown bacteria could produce electricity under artificial conditions in which special chemicals were added, but the UMass study was the first to prove that the nearly ubiquitous microbes living in a typical marine environment could produce electricity under the conditions naturally found in that environment.

"Once we know more about the genome of Geobacters, we will be able to manipulate these organisms to make them receptive to a variety of organic or inorganic contaminants. Theoretically, when they begin to degrade the contaminant, they will throw electrons on an electrode, and that could set off a light, a sound or some other form of signal," Lovely said. "An understanding of how this phenomenon operates has a number of extremely timely applications, especially in developing technologies to recognize toxins and organic contaminants." Lovley cites, for example, the potential for using such technology to develop military equipment that could alert soldiers to the presence of toxins or biological warfare agents in the immediate environment.

The Office of Naval Research funded this study.

Just because you can only think of one use for a technology, don't be quick to label it useless.

Other uses might be to power seafloor monitoring instruments, or just to indicate that some interesting reaction is taking place.

Shit happens

[Chocolate Teapot]

If you read this paper, it becomes clear that the practice of using human excrement as a natural fertilizer is far from perfect.

Cysticercosis of the central nervous system (neurocysticercosis) is caused by the larval stage (cysticerci) of the pork tapeworm Taenia solium. The two-host life cycle of this tapeworm comprises human beings as definitive hosts and swine as intermediate hosts. Pigs become infected when they ingest human faeces containing T. solium eggs, which develop in the muscle and brain into cysticerci. When people eat undercooked pork containing viable cysticerci, they develop an intestinal tapeworm infection, but not cysticercosis of the central nervous system. Human beings can also become intermediate hosts, however, by directly ingesting T. solium eggs shed in the faeces of human carriers of the parasite. These eggs then develop into cysticerci which migrate mostly into muscle (causing cysticercosis) and into the central nervous system where the cysticerci can cause seizures and many other neurological symptoms (cysticercosis of the central nervous system).

This is particularly prevalent in China, where as you quite rightly observed, human faeces is used as fertiliser.

Re:Copper + ZInc + Acid

[SiliconEntity]

The "potato clocks" and such are misleading. You're not getting the power from the potato. The power comes from the electric differential between the two electrodes of dissimilar metals. The potato just supplies an electrolyte. You can get exactly the same effect by sticking the electrodes into salt water. The metals gradually dissolve away, and when they're gone the system can't generate any more power.

A different way of doing it?

[kurtkilgor]

It looks like this particular incarnation of a bio-battery isn't so useful, but it makes me wonder: a battery discharges essentially by eating away at one of the electrodes. When a battery is recharged, the metal from the electrode is re-deposited on it, however this doesn't happen quickly, efficiently, or completely. Perhaps it would be possible to find a species of bacteria that could help in this process? Perhaps the electrolyte could have some kind of nutrient in it that the bacteria would eat and re-deposit the metal in the process?