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Team:Bielefeld-CeBiTec/Results/rMFC/Construction
From 2014.igem.org
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Construction of an electrobiochemical reactor
Our plan was it to design a reactor system that is suitable to investigate the electrochemical behaviour in bioprocesses. That includes the possibility to characterize mediators and different electrode materials on the one hand and the electron uptake into the cells on the other.
During our research we discovered the H-cell reactor that seems to meet with our needs. (Park et al., 1999)
Figure 1: H-cell reactor set up. You can see the anode- and cathode- compartments which are connected by a glass flange. The water-heating connection, fumigation and the wiring of the needed electrodes. It is a three electrode set up with working- (WE) und reference- electrode (RE) in the cathode space and a counter electrode (CE) in the anode space.
Cyclic voltammetry - mediator characterization
During our experiments we used a Ag/AgCl reference electrode for measuring the working electrode potential. The counter electrode, which completes the cell circuit, was made from platinum wire. Platinum has the advantage that it is an inert conducter.
Cultivation - constant voltage
The first experiments in the H-cell reactor were performed under constant direct voltage. These experiments were performed to test the set up. We investigated if E. coli was able to grow in the needed voltage range and if the different mediators influence the cells if a small electric current is applied.
Chronoamperometry - current consumption
Figure 2: Overlay of the chronoamperometric measurements from cultivation A B and C.
Flow Cell
References
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Park, D. H.,Laivenieks, M., Guettler, M. V., Jain, M. K. & Zeikus, J.G. (1999) Microbial utilization of electrically reduced neutral red as the sole electron donor for growth and metabolic production. In: Appl. Environ. Microbiol., 65 (7), pp. 2912 - 2917.
