THE ACTIVE INGREDIENT

When you think or read the word "bacteria" you probably think of an illness or maybe you brush your teeth or hands. Definitely not on the production of electricity.

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Recent research has produced surprising results; bacteria can actually produce electricity.

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The result of this research says that all bacteria produce electrons with their metabolism. At first glance it seems that they are connected to each other in the compound they are in, using the nanotubes, which they produce for the purpose, this discovery could open completely new opportunities in bioenergy production.

 

       Bacterial batteries

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Bacteria that can produce electricity can do so by transferring electrons directly to the anode. the electrons do not use any intermediate or shuttles; in fact, they reach and touch the anode through the nanowires.

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The electron production of bacteria is transferred directly to the anode. For this transport they do not use shuttles or other means but they arrive at the electrode through the specially created nanotubes. The production of energy takes place with a sort of anaerobic respiration, in the mud and similar material, which must be as finest as possible.

 

 

THE ACTIVE INGREDIENTS

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Perhaps there are people who want to experience themselves how to produce energy from soil and plants. Nothing of much easier, grabs to a nail and a piece of copper sticks it in soil at about 10 cm (4”) one from other and measure the voltage between these electrodes, in a good soil you will read about 400 to 800 milli volts more or less, no problem at all.

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The incredible start when you want to have a current to turn on a led or to operate a small electrical device, you will see that the LED will not turn on and the device will not work, due to low energy, in fact a colored LED will need some milli amps at 1.8 Volt, is it possible to turn on the LED? Or yes it is. you take a galvanized tube / tape of at least 1.9 m (about 2 meters) and a copper strip of 2 x 30 x 80 cm x 3 meters, they break at about 2 m distance, measure the tension between them, if all it was done well, you will have about 800 mV, if you do it two or three times by matching them "in series" (coupling the least of the first to the most of the second and so on), you can get up to 2.3 V on the free sides, value that would be sufficient to turn on a red LED, cause to the voltage drop due to the load of the LED.​

A work of this kind, due to the presence of two different electrodes, is more like a galvanic cell than a microbial cell in which most of the energy comes from inorganic materials, but in the absence of bacteria we can see that the energy will be not more produced.

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The so-called MFCs operate completely differently, using wastewater and organic residues in appropriate reactors rather than in the ground.

Here the use of MFC is not treated due to the particular hygienic precautions necessary to carry out everything in complete safety, for the treatment of waste water and its residues. Some compounds resulting from these processes can produce bacteriological cultures favoring the growth of bacterial cultures dangerous to human health and must be transformed / treated in specific plants.

Later on, we will describe the process for grasping the energy from the ground or from the plant; Even the use of the garden or potted soil is not problematic, if the soil comes from known sources and is managed with normal household waste of the usual kitchen.

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Our prototypes are absolutely natural without chemical, electrical or mechanical treatments, we are interested in having a product that gives the possibility to produce unpolluted edible vegetables, we only need an "harvester" (collection circuit) and a system of accumulators, in which he imagines the energy produced continuously by our plants and the soil in which they grow. 

Don’t worries for dangerous bacteria, if you work with the necessary cleaning, avoiding putting too much rotted waste material the soil will maintain the balance and the necessary hygiene. All other experience to this purpose must be made appropriated decomposition cells.

 

If you are really interested to see how to produce energy from the soil goes, you must know what the electrodes are and how they behave the elements between them.

 

We start from the soil components such as clay, silt, sand in different compositions, along with other organic components.

The organic component can be foliage, excrement, minerals, water and so on, which promote bacterial metabolism.

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Easy example

The compounds and environments described are the culture of many bacteria that, as mentioned, generate electrons. If you put the earth in a plastic jar and you introduce two electrodes, usually copper and zinc, taking care to keep them separate from each other, if the earth is sufficiently moist, a tension is produced between them.

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The amount of soil in the jar must be at least two liters, to obtain satisfactory results.

In this container, with electrodes of about 50 cm2 each, a voltage of 400 to 600 thousand volts can be obtained.