Bacteria Desalinate Water, Generate Power

Eric Bland, Discovery News

Aug. 25, 2009 -- Bacteria can be used to turn dirty salt water into electricity
and drinkable water, according to new research from scientists at Penn State Uni
versity and Tsinghua University.
The research presents a new spin on microbial fuel cells, which have been used i
n the past to produce electricity or store it as hydrogen or methane gas.
"The idea of a microbial fuel cell is based on taking organic waste and turning
it into a source of energy," said Bruce Logan, a scientist at Penn State and co-
author of a paper in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.
"In this newest discovery, we figured we would desalinate water by modifying the
electricity generated by the bacteria."
The researchers start with a cup full of water from a pond or other natural sour
ce. Among the millions of microbes in the sample, some of the bacteria (scientis
ts haven't identified the specific species) will naturally produce electrons and
protons inside their cells and transport them outside themselves.
Other bacteria scavenge those free electrons and protons and use them as fuel to
create hydrogen, methane or other chemicals, which can serve as energy sources.
Using only two thin pieces of plastic, the researchers have discovered the key t
o harnessing the power of these microbes. The membrane created by the Penn State
scientists can draw away the electrons, ions or gases created by the microbes,
towards an anode or a cathode, which are positively and negatively charged elect
rodes.
Anode, cathode and membranes are all encased within a clear plastic case about t
he size of a small tissue box. Add a cupful of pond water between the two membra
nes, and the bacteria start their jobs. The entire process leaves almost pure --
about 90 percent -- water behind.
The exact purity of the water can be changed depending on the needs of the scien
tists or the desalination industry, if the process is scaled up commercially. Th
ese microbial fuel cells can create pure, drinkable water. It may also remove mo
st of the salt from water to make conventional purification methods cheaper by r
educing the amount of electricity necessary.
Whatever the resulting salinity, "this is the first time that any one has used a
microbial fuel cell for desalination," said Hong Liu, a scientist at Oregon Sta
te University also developing microbial fuel cells.
"(Using this approach) you basically need zero power input, and it could even pr
oduce energy if you use organic material as the input," said Liu.
For now, microbial fuel cells, whether they desalinate water, generate electrici
ty or create hydrogen, methane or other gases, are limited to small-scale labora
tory devices. That will change next month, however, when Logan and his colleague
s install a larger microbial fuel cell to turn waste water from a Napa Valley wi
nery into hydrogen gas.
"This project is just a demonstration for now," said Logan. "But ultimately (the
winery) could use the power generated by the microbial fuel cell to power cars,
forklifts or other vehicles."
Bacteria can be used to turn dirty salt water into electricity and drinkable wat
er, according to new research from scientists at Penn State University and Tsing
hua University.
The research presents a new spin on microbial fuel cells, which have been used i
n the past to produce electricity or store it as hydrogen or methane gas.
"The idea of a microbial fuel cell is based on taking organic waste and turning
it into a source of energy," said Bruce Logan, a scientist at Penn State and co-
author of a paper in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.
"In this newest discovery, we figured we would desalinate water by modifying the
electricity generated by the bacteria."
Wastewater Produces Electricity And Desalinates Water
ScienceDaily (Aug. 7, 2009) A process that cleans wastewater and generates elect
ricity can also remove 90 percent of salt from brackish water or seawater, accor
ding to an international team of researchers from China and the U.S.
See Also:
Matter & Energy
* Nature of Water
* Fuel Cells
* Electricity
Earth & Climate
* Water
* Pollution
* Drought Research
Reference
* Desalination
* Brackish water
* Sewage treatment
* Power station
Clean water for drinking, washing and industrial uses is a scarce resource in so
me parts of the world. Its availability in the future will be even more problema
tic. Many locations already desalinate water using either a reverse osmosis proc
ess -- one that pushes water under high pressure through membranes that allow wa
ter to pass but not salt -- or an electrodialysis process that uses electricity
to draw salt ions out of water through a membrane. Both methods require large am
ounts of energy.
"Water desalination can be accomplished without electrical energy input or high
water pressure by using a source of organic matter as the fuel to desalinate wat
er," the researchers report in a recent online issue of Environmental Science an
d Technology.
"The big selling point is that it currently takes a lot of electricity to desali
nate water and using the microbial desalination cells, we could actually desalin
ate water and produce electricity while removing organic material from wastewate
r," said Bruce Logan, Kappe Professor of Environmental Engineering, Penn State
The team modified a microbial fuel cell -- a device that uses naturally occurrin
g bacteria to convert wastewater into clean water producing electricity -- so it
 could desalinate salty water.
"Our main intent was to show that using bacteria we can produce sufficient curre
nt to do this," said Logan. "However, it took 200 milliliters of an artificial w
astewater -- acetic acid in water -- to desalinate 3 milliliters of salty water.
This is not a practical system yet as it is not optimized, but it is proof of c
oncept."
A typical microbial fuel cell consists of two chambers, one filled with wastewat
er or other nutrients and the other with water, each containing an electrode. Na
turally occurring bacteria in the wastewater consume the organic material and pr
oduce electricity.
The researchers, who also included Xiaoxin Cao, Xia Huang, Peng Liang, Kang Xiao
, Yinjun Zhou and Xiaoyuan Zhang, at Tsinghua University, Beijing, changed the m
icrobial fuel cell by adding a third chamber between the two existing chambers a
nd placing certain ion specific membranes -- membranes that allow either positiv
e or negative ions through, but not both -- between the central chamber and the
positive and negative electrodes. Salty water to be desalinated is placed in the
central chamber.
Seawater contains about 35 grams of salt per liter and brackish water contains 5
grams per liter. Salt not only dissolves in water, it dissociates into positive
and negative ions. When the bacteria in the cell consume the wastewater it rele
ases charged ions -- protons -- into the water. These protons cannot pass the an
ion membrane, so negative ions move from the salty water into the wastewater cha
mber. At the other electrode protons are consumed, so positively charged ions mo
ve from the salty water to the other electrode chamber, desalinating the water i
n the middle chamber.
The desalination cell releases ions into the outer chambers that help to improve
the efficiency of electricity generation compared to microbial fuel cells.
"When we try to use microbial fuel cells to generate electricity, the conductivi
ty of the wastewater is very low," said Logan. "If we could add salt it would wo
rk better. Rather than just add in salt, however in places where brackish or sal
t water is already abundant, we could use the process to additionally desalinate
salty water, clean the wastewater and dump it and the resulting salt back into
the ocean."
Because the salt in the water helps the cell generate electricity, as the centra
l chamber becomes less salty, the conductivity decreases and the desalination an
d electrical production decreases, which is why only 90 percent of the salt is r
emoved. However, a 90 percent decrease in salt in seawater would produce water w
ith 3.5 grams of salt per liter, which is less than brackish water. Brackish wat
er would contain only 0.5 grams of salt per liter.
Another problem with the current cell is that as protons are produced at one ele
ctrode and consumed at the other electrode, these chambers become more acidic an
d alkaline. Mixing water from the two chambers together when they are discharged
would once again produce neutral, salty water, so the acidity and alkalinity ar
e not an environmental problem assuming the cleaned wastewater is dumped into br
ackish water or seawater. However, the bacteria that run the cell might have a p
roblem living in highly acidic environments.
For this experiment, the researchers periodically added a pH buffer avoiding the
acid problem, but this problem will need to be considered if the system is to p
roduce reasonable amounts of desalinized water.
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia and Ministry of
Science and Technology, China, supported this work.