The Supergen Biological Fuel Cells Consortium

Completed

Hydrogen and Fuel Cells(Fuel Cells, Stationary applications)
Renewable Energy Sources(Bio-Energy, Applications for heat and electricity)

Basic and strategic applied research

PHYSICAL SCIENCES AND MATHEMATICS (Chemistry)
PHYSICAL SCIENCES AND MATHEMATICS (Metallurgy and Materials)
ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Civil Engineering)
ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Mechanical, Aeronautical and Manufacturing Engineering)

Not Cross-cutting

Professor FA Armstrong
Oxford Chemistry
University of Oxford

Standard

EPSRC

18 April 2006

17 October 2010

54 months

£2,024,718

Energy

South East

Energy : Energy

Professor FA Armstrong, Oxford Chemistry, University of Oxford

Professor ZX Guo, Chemistry, University College London
Professor CJ Pickett, Chemical Sciences and Pharmacy, University of East Anglia
Dr GC Premier, School of Technology, University of Glamorgan
Professor RCT Slade, Chemistry, University of Surrey
Dr WT Sloan, Civil Engineering, University of Glasgow

Project Contact, Biocatalysts Ltd
Project Contact, Thames Water Utilities Plc
Project Contact, Anglian Water
Project Contact, Chameleon Biosurfaces Ltd
Project Contact, Yorkshire Water
Project Contact, CMR Fuel Cells Ltd
Project Contact, MAST Carbon

A consortium of teams from 6 universities aims to achieve major advances in a technology that potentially produces electricity directly from sustainable biological materials and air, in devices known as biological fuel cells. These devices are of two main types: in microbial fuel cells micro-organisms convert organic materials into fuels that can be oxidised in electrochemical cells, and in enzymatic fuel cells electricity is produced as a result of the action of an enzyme (a biological catalyst). Fuels that can be used include (1) pure biochemicals such as glucose, (2) hydrogen gas and (3) organic chemicals present in waste water.The Consortium programme involves a unique combination of microbiology, enzymology, electrochemistry, materials science and computational modelling. Key challenges that the Consortium will face include modelling and understanding the interaction of an electrochemical cell and a population of micro-organisms, attaching and optimising appropriate enzymes, developing and studying synthetic assemblies that contain the active site of a natural enzyme, optimising electrode materials for this application, and designing, building and testing novel biologicalfuel cells.A Biofuel Cells Industrial Club is to be formed, with industrial partners active in water management, porous materials, microbiology, biological catalysis and fuel cell technology. The programme and its outcomes will be significant steps towards producing electricity from materials andtechniques originating in the life sciences. The technology is likely to be perceived as greenerthan use of solely chemical and engineering approaches, and there is considerable potential for spin off in changed technologies (e.g. cost reductions, reduction in the need for precious metals, biological catalysts for production of hydrogen by electrolysis)

01/01/07