美国加利福尼亚大学洛杉矶分校Yu Huang团队报道了银纳米颗粒提高Shewanella微生物燃料电池的电荷提取效率。相关研究成果于2021年9月17日发表在国际顶尖学术期刊《科学》。

微生物燃料电池（MFC）可以将储存在有机物中的化学能直接转化为电能，在发电和废水处理方面具有重要意义。然而，目前的MFC通常表现出令人不满意的低功率密度，很大程度上受到缓慢的跨膜和细胞外电子转移过程的限制。

该文中，研究人员报告了一种合理的策略，通过引入跨膜和外膜银纳米颗粒，大幅提高Shewanella MFC的电荷提取效率。由此产生的Shewanella银MFC的最大电流密度为3.85mA/cm2，功率密度为0.66mW/cm²，单电池转换频率为8.6×10⁵/s，大大高于迄今为止报道的最佳MFC。此外，混合MFC具有优异的燃料利用效率，库仑效率为81%。

附：英文原文

Title: Silver nanoparticles boost charge-extraction efficiency in Shewanella microbial fuel cells

Author: Bocheng Cao, Zipeng Zhao, Lele Peng, Hui-Ying Shiu, Mengning Ding, Frank Song, Xun Guan, Calvin K. Lee, Jin Huang, Dan Zhu, Xiaoyang Fu, Gerard C. L. Wong, Chong Liu, Kenneth Nealson, Paul S. Weiss, Xiangfeng Duan, Yu Huang

Issue&Volume: 2021-09-17

Abstract: Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) can directly convert the chemical energy stored in organic matter to electricity and are of considerable interest for power generation and wastewater treatment. However, the current MFCs typically exhibit unsatisfactorily low power densities that are largely limited by the sluggish transmembrane and extracellular electron-transfer processes. Here, we report a rational strategy to boost the charge-extraction efficiency in Shewanella MFCs substantially by introducing transmembrane and outer-membrane silver nanoparticles. The resulting Shewanella-silver MFCs deliver a maximum current density of 3.85 milliamperes per square centimeter, power density of 0.66 milliwatts per square centimeter, and single-cell turnover frequency of 8.6 × 105 per second, which are all considerably higher than those of the best MFCs reported to date. Additionally, the hybrid MFCs feature an excellent fuel-utilization efficiency, with a coulombic efficiency of 81%.

DOI: abf3427

Source: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abf3427