Abstract
Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) face major hurdles for real-world applications as power generators with the exception of powering small sensor devices. Despite tremendous improvements made in the last two decades, MFCs are still too expensive to build and operate and their power output is still too small. In view of this, in recently years, intensive researches have been carried out to expand the applications into other areas such as acid and alkali production, bioremediation of aquatic sediments, desalination and biosensors. Unlike power applications, MFC sensors have the immediate prospect to be practical. This review covers the latest developments in various proposed biosensor applications using MFCs including monitoring microbial activity, testing biochemical oxygen demand, detection of toxicants and detection of microbial biofilms that cause biocorrosion.
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Acknowledgments
This work was financially supported by Natural Science Foundation of China (nos. 21328602, 51178225 and 21273120), GEFC09-12, NCET-08-0296 and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.
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Yang, H., Zhou, M., Liu, M. et al. Microbial fuel cells for biosensor applications. Biotechnol Lett 37, 2357–2364 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10529-015-1929-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10529-015-1929-7