PMID- 28364654
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 20170505
LR  - 20171201
IS  - 1879-2448 (Electronic)
IS  - 0043-1354 (Linking)
VI  - 117
DP  - 2017 Jun 15
TI  - Microbial fuel cells for inexpensive continuous in-situ monitoring of groundwater 
      quality.
PG  - 9-17
LID - S0043-1354(17)30223-3 [pii]
LID - 10.1016/j.watres.2017.03.040 [doi]
AB  - Online monitoring of groundwater quality in shallow wells to detect faecal or 
      organic pollution could dramatically improve understanding of health risks in 
      unplanned peri-urban settlements. Microbial fuel cells (MFC) are devices able to 
      generate electricity from the organic matter content in faecal pollution making 
      them suitable as biosensors. In this work, we evaluate the suitability of four 
      microbial fuel cell systems placed in different regions of a groundwater well for 
      the low-cost monitoring of a faecal pollution event. Concepts created include the 
      use of a sediment/bulk liquid MFC (SED/BL), a sediment/sediment MFC (SED/SED), a 
      bulk liquid/air MFC (BL/Air), and a bulk liquid/bulk liquid MFC (BL/BL). MFC 
      electrodes assembly aimed to use inexpensive, durable, materials, which would 
      produce a signal after a contamination event without external energy or chemical 
      inputs. All MFC configurations were responsive to a contamination event, however 
      SED/SED and BL/Air MFC concepts failed to deliver a reproducible output within 
      the tested period of time. BL/BL MFC and SED/BL MFCs presented an increase in the 
      average current after contamination from -0.75 +/- 0.35 muA to -0.66 +/- 0.41 muA, and 
      0.07 +/- 0.2 mA to 0.11 +/- 0.03 mA, respectively. Currents produced by the SED/BL 
      MFC (SMFC) were considerably higher than for the BL/BL MFCs, making them more 
      responsive, readable and graphically visible. A factorial design of experiments 
      (DOE) was applied to evaluate which environmental and design factors had the 
      greatest effect on current response in a contamination event. Within the ranges 
      of variables tested, salinity, temperature and external resistance, only 
      temperature presented a statistically significant effect (p = 0.045). This showed 
      that the biosensor response would be sensitive to fluctuations in temperature but 
      not to changes in salinity, or external resistances produced from placing 
      electrodes at different distances within a groundwater well.
CI  - Copyright (c) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.
FAU - Velasquez-Orta, S B
AU  - Velasquez-Orta SB
AD  - School of Chemical Engineering and Advanced Materials, Faculty of Science, 
      Agriculture and Engineering, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, 
      United Kingdom. Electronic address: sh2203@yahoo.com.
FAU - Werner, D
AU  - Werner D
AD  - School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Faculty of Science, Agriculture and 
      Engineering, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, United Kingdom.
FAU - Varia, J C
AU  - Varia JC
AD  - School of Chemical Engineering and Advanced Materials, Faculty of Science, 
      Agriculture and Engineering, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, 
      United Kingdom.
FAU - Mgana, S
AU  - Mgana S
AD  - Ardhi University, School of Environmental Science and Technology, P.O.Box 35176, 
      Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
LA  - eng
PT  - Journal Article
PT  - Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
DEP - 20170319
PL  - England
TA  - Water Res
JT  - Water research
JID - 0105072
SB  - IM
MH  - *Bioelectric Energy Sources
MH  - Biosensing Techniques
MH  - *Electricity
MH  - Electrodes
MH  - Groundwater
OTO - NOTNLM
OT  - Biosensor
OT  - Faecal pollution
OT  - Groundwater
OT  - Microbial fuel cell
OT  - Water monitoring
EDAT- 2017/04/02 06:00
MHDA- 2017/05/06 06:00
CRDT- 2017/04/02 06:00
PHST- 2016/12/07 00:00 [received]
PHST- 2017/03/16 00:00 [revised]
PHST- 2017/03/18 00:00 [accepted]
PHST- 2017/04/02 06:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2017/05/06 06:00 [medline]
PHST- 2017/04/02 06:00 [entrez]
AID - S0043-1354(17)30223-3 [pii]
AID - 10.1016/j.watres.2017.03.040 [doi]
PST - ppublish
SO  - Water Res. 2017 Jun 15;117:9-17. doi: 10.1016/j.watres.2017.03.040. Epub 2017 Mar 
      19.