Phytoplankton Power ! - Hybrid Microbial Fuel Cell

Well a filament spool fell off the machine and hit the emergency stop button causing a misprint. Sad times.  So I started another print and finished out the last of what was on the white roll. I am out of white so I have switched to silver which is what I have the most of.  The second printer is working on 3 cells now and I believe will have enough for another 3 before the roll is too small to use for anything. Otherwise everything is going well. We have 10 cells printed, 13 once I pull the 3 off the printer when I get home.

Day 4 , I moved the algae to another location in a corner with two windows. It gets much more light here.

19.5 hours later the first batch of 6 casings are popped off the printer bed. I immediately restarted the printer to get another 6 printed by morning. As for 5 volts I estimate I would need 24 cells at the lowest expected voltage yield. By morning I will have 12 printed , 18 the following morning and 24 by Saturday morning.

Day 3 Algae production

I have started printing the case blanks for the bio reactors. I will need several to chain together. When I get the copper and zinc wire I will be able to do initial tests to see how much voltage is produced.  The most possible is about 1.2 volts per cell , but given that this is a aqueas cell where the medium has water has a carrier , the voltage is lower per cell, likely .25 volts if I make a guess. We shall see in the first tests. I need to produce at least 13.8 volts under load ( not free voltage direct to meter without load). It would be pretty stinking cool to be able to charge all my phones and batteries for robots from GREEN power. :)

At this time 6 Cell’s are printing and they will be finished likely before I head to work in the morning so I can start another set printing. These cells could certainly be scaled down to as little as 25 percent of the current size , so I am making the STL files and other parts completely scaleable so you can GO BIG or just to a science project.

I will likely try a few different designs ,but this is the first. It also gives me an opportunity to make sure that the 3D printer is calibrated and the new filament is working well. This first version is basically a double well and all the electrodes and salt bridge comes through the top.

One side is filled with waste water and nitrifying bacteria , the other side is micro algae solution.

The grand idea is to pump this in and out of the reaction chambers and into their cultivation jugs. One for bacteria and one for algae growth.

It is 100mm tall and 50mm wide. I may make the walls thinner but the idea was the have something to screw into from the top. 

https://youtu.be/3LGxtijZM2U

I received the 200ml algae culture and started growing immediately. I added the filter plus 1ml of F2 essential minerals to a 5 gallon jug of purified water. It is said that this kind of algae can double cell volume every day so I’m crossing my fingers I have a dense culture by July 4.  Once I have a healthy dense mass I will split it into other containers for the next experiments in using algae to consume home bio wastes.

Next I need to start culturing the anaerobic bacteria that will break down home wastes into usable food for the algae, this should be interesting!

Most organic wastes from a normal house hold anywhere in the world. These can be broken down into food wastes, fecal wastes and urine. I planned on just mixing them all together from the start until I realized there is a more efficient way to use them. First collect avail energy from the wastes before pumping/ moving to a nitrifying bacterial container. This is where Nitrites and Nitrates are made for the  Algea to eat. Food and Fecal wastes also pass on essential vitamins and minerals algae use to thrive. In the right conditions this strain of algae can double the number of cells in just one day.

https://www.google.com/amp/www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Microbial-Fuel-Cell-easy/%3Famp_page%3Dtrue

I am sure some information is redundant, but I am doing as much research as I can on the subject which appears to be scarce. Nearly all the algae detailed information is in relation to chemically converting the oils in the algae to biofuel. Which is great , but does not apply to direct electrical energy production. I will post various articles and informative sources here.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0961953415300052

Info about understanding electrodes

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1369702115003181

algea as food for bacteria?

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/092134499390037G

PDF power point for proposed bacteria / algae bio reactor.

https://uwmrf.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/OTT1265SlideDeck_2016.pdf

Nitrification by autotroph bacteria in waste water, specifically human and animals.

Something I specifically learned in this is that  nitrifying bacteria prefer a 6.8-7.5 PH level

Here is the starting culture I am planning on ordering. In the meantime I will think of ways I can store the water and algae. I am thinking of using water containers.