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Microbial Fuel Cells
The reduction of waste is increasingly an issue for our politicians and policymakers who are continually looking for new ways to improve efficiency. Researchers at the Edinburgh Centre for Bioinformatics are working to develop a novel waste remediation system that not only uses a variety of waste materials but also produces clean water and electricity as a by-product.
This product is a Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC), which uses micro-organisms to convert biological matter, such as wastewater, into clean water and electricity. This has the potential to form the basis of a self-sustaining water purification system as well as acting as a fuel source in objects such as next generation miniature biomedical devices (e.g. monitoring devices for people with diabetes). This research is in development and has the potential to produce technology that could impact on the way we manage waste streams.
This article was published on Dec 22, 2010