New Microbial Photovoltaic System Created by Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Researchers from the Institute of Microbiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have designed and created a synthetic microbiome with directional electron flow, which solves the problem of weak direct electrical activity of cyanobacteria and improves the photoelectric conversion efficiency of biophotovoltaic (BPV). Related results were published online in "Nature-Newsletter".

With the continuous improvement of energy conversion efficiency and the continuous reduction of manufacturing costs, the cumulative installed capacity of global solar photovoltaics has exceeded 500GW. However, some photovoltaic materials contain toxic elements, and the amount of waste solar panels is large and difficult to recycle. In addition, the manufacturing process of photovoltaic devices involves the use of toxic and hazardous chemicals.

The synthetic microbiome created by the researchers consists of an engineered cyanobacteria that can store light energy in D-lactic acid and a Shewanella that can efficiently use D-lactic acid to generate electricity. Cyanobacteria absorb light energy and fix CO2 to synthesize energy carrier D-lactic acid, and Shewanella oxidizes D-lactic acid to generate electricity, thereby forming a directional electron flow from photon to D-lactic acid to electrical energy, from light energy to chemistry Energy conversion process that can return to electrical energy.

The researchers overcame the problem of physiological incompatibility between the two microorganisms and created a dual-bacteria biophotovoltaic system that achieved efficient and stable power output with a maximum power density of 150mW / m2, which is generally higher than the current single-bacteria biophotovoltaic system More than 10 times. Using the continuous feed culture method, the dual-bacteria bio-photovoltaic system can stably achieve power output of more than 40 days. This study breaks people's inherent understanding of the difficulty in improving the efficiency and life of biophotovoltaics, and lays an important foundation for further improving the BPV photoelectric conversion efficiency. (Reporter Feng Lifei)

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