CeBiTec Colloquium (unscheduled)
Monday, September 9th 2013, 15 s.t.
G2-104, CeBiTec Building
Prof. Dr. Falk Harnisch
Department Umweltmikrobiologie, Helmholtz-Zentrum für Umweltforschung - UFZ, Leipzig
Electrically wired bacteria: From insights into microbial extracellular electron transfer to microbial electrochemical technologies
The transfer of electrons between microorganism and insoluble electron donors and acceptors, i.e. microbial extracellular electron transfer (EET – see Figure), was discovered more than 100 years ago. However, only recently it is more and more evident that this is a natural process, playing a crucial role in geochemical redox-cycles and providing the platform of a potential future technology. These technologies are generally referred to as microbial electrochemical technologies (MET) or microbial bioelectrochemical systems (BES), with its archetype being the microbial fuel cell (MFC).
This presentation will span from the fundamentals of EET in pure cultures and complex microbiomes to potential applications in waste water treatment and White Biotechnology.
2013-09-09 harnisch
Figure: Depicting the different (so far described) bacterial electron transfer mechanisms in biofilms on the example of an anodic biofilm (redrafted from F. Harnisch & U. Schröder, “Biofilms, electroactive” Encyclopedia of Applied Electrochemistry, Springer 2014).
Host: iGEM Team Bielefeld 2013