Make a Microbial Fuel Cell! 

Interested in building a Microbial Fuel Cell yourself? Several students, in middle schools, high schools, and in College, have already had lots of fun with this project (see links below).  We have even included some general guidelines to help get you started if you are interested in making your own.

Guide to making a microbial fuel cell prepared by Karl Shellenberger, Ph.D. student, The Pennsylvania State University

Examples of student MFC projects (universities and public schools):

• Ian Bennett (7th grade, La Entrada School) for the local science fair build an MFC. His project was "Generating Electricity From Wastewater Using A Microbial Fuel Cell". It had a a very simple design, but generated a 152.45 mV (2008) Abstract
   
• Abbie Groff (Conastoga Valley High School). Abbie won the Lancaster county grand prize for her project."Identification of Benthic Microbes Utilizing Bioremediation and Microbial Fuel Cells". 
  Newspaper release (295 kb).
   
• Sikandar Porter-Gill (Gaithersburg High School). Harvesting Energy from Wastewater in a 2-Chamber Microbial Fuel Cell (442 kb).
   
• Eric A. Zielke (Humboldt State University)
  - Design of a Single Chamber Microbial Fuel Cell (1.40 mb),
  Probabilistic Analysis of a Monod-type equation by use of a single chamber Microbial Fuel Cell (374kb),
  - Application of Microbial Fuel Cell technology for a Waste Water Treatment Alternative - (1021kb)
  - Thermodynamic Analysis of s single chamber Microbial Fuel Cell (707kb)
  - Numerical Analysis of a one dimensional Diffusion Equation for a single chamber Microbial Fuel Cell using a Linked Simulation Optimization (LSO) technique (924kb)
  - Poster presented at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) 2006 Conference (945kB)
   
• Khanik Bohra, who is from Guwahati, India, sent a picture of his home-made MFC. See below (4-4-08).  

Have you built one? Send us your photos, website, or other information (email: blogan@psu.edu).

Pictures of student projects:

Abbie Groff's Microbial Fuel Cell project		2-Chamber Microbial Fuel Cell design with membrane chamber by Sikandar
Ian Bennet's MFC with volt meter		Two of Ian Bennett's MFCs, connected with salt bridges.