The deteriorating environmental quality requires a rapid in situ real-time monitoring of toxic compounds environment including water and wastewater. One the most nitrogen-containing ions is nitrite ion, therefore, it particularly important to ensure that are completely absent surface ground waters as well wastewater or, at least, their concentration does not exceed permissible levels. However, ...

Often, reproducible investigations on bio-microsystems essentially require a flexible but well-defined experimental setup, which in its features corresponds to a bioreactor. We therefore developed a miniature bioreactor with a volume in the range of a few millilitre that is assembled by alternate stacking of individual polycarbonate elements and silicone gaskets. All the necessary supply pipes ...

Microbial electrochemical techniques describe a variety of emerging technologies that use electrode-bacteria interactions for biotechnology applications including the production of electricity, waste and wastewater treatment, bioremediation and the production of valuable products. Central in each application is the ability of the microbial catalyst to interact with external electron acceptors a...

The placement of the reference electrode (RE) in various bioelectrochemical systems is often varied to accommodate different reactor configurations. While the effect of the RE placement is well understood from a strictly electrochemistry perspective, there are impacts on exoelectrogenic biofilms in engineered systems that have not been adequately addressed. Varying distances between the working...

Here, we present the proof-of-concept for a subsurface bioelectrochemical system (BES)-based biosensor capable of monitoring microbial respiration that occurs through exocellular electron transfer. This system includes our open-source design of a three-channel microcontroller-unit (MCU)-based potentiostat that is capable of chronoamperometry, which laboratory tests showed to be accurate within ...

In bioelectrochemical system (BES) the extracellular electron transfer (EET) from bacteria to anode electrode is recognized as a crucial step that governs the anodic reaction efficiency. Here, we report a novel approach to substantially enhance the microbial EET by immobilization of a small active phenothiazine derivative, methylene blue, on electrode surface. A comparison of the currents gener...

Microbial electrosynthesis (MES) systems with mixed cultures often generate a variety of gaseous and soluble chemicals. Methane is the primary end product in mixed-culture MES because it is the thermodynamically most favorable reduction product of CO2. Here, we show that the peptaibol alamethicin selectively suppressed the growth of methanogens in mixed-culture MES systems, resulting in a shift...

Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) and microbial electrolysis cells (MECs) are two types of microbial bioelectrochemical systems (BESs) that use microorganisms to convert chemical energy in wastewaters into useful energy products such as (bio)electricity (MFC) or hydrogen gas (MEC). These two systems were evaluated for their capacity to attenuate trace organic compounds (TOrCs), commonly found in muni...

Over the past decade, studies have shown that devices called microbial fuel cells (MFCs) can harness electricity from microbially mediated degradation of organic carbon, in both lab cultures and natural environments. Other studies have shown that MFCs can harness power from coastal and deep ocean sediments, as well as from plankton, without any fuel supplementation or microbial inoculation. The...